It Takes Two
by dnrl
Summary: Percy is a suffering student of marine biology at NYU. Against his wishes, his cousin signs him up for a tutor, and he resigns himself to endless boredom...but the tutor he gets definitely isn't what he was expecting. Percabeth, AU
1. Chapter 1

**It Takes Two **

_By: dnrl_

* * *

Percy is a suffering student of marine biology at NYU. Against his wishes, his cousin signs him up for a tutor, and he resigns himself to endless boredom...but the tutor he gets definitely isn't what he was expecting. Percabeth, AU

* * *

Chapter One: The Bliss of Blind Dates 

* * *

"...You're kidding me."

My Stats professor focused his bulgy eyes on me, his unibrow digging down between them. "Mister Jackson, why on Earth would this be a _kidding_ matter? You are _two and a half points away _from failing my statistics class, and frankly I can't see any way to pull your grade up but to get a perfect score on my exam."

Because that was totally gonna happen.

"Professor Stein, I really don't -"

He held up a gnarled hand. "I don't want to hear your arguments, Mister Jackson. Either you pass my exam or you will fail Statistics, and thus be unable to graduate. I am very sorry."

Liar.

"...Thank you for telling me, Professor."

"Mm," he said in that nasally way of his. He looked down, fiddling with the papers on his desk with those knotted hands...and _disgustingly_ long fingernails. _Eugh_. He glanced up and looked surprised to still see me there. "You may be on your way, Mister Jackson."

"...Thank you, sir."

* * *

"_How could this happen!?_"

I was raging in the peace (not really) of my dorm room, much to the amusement of my dorm mate. He smirked at me. "Maybe you are as dumb as you look," he suggested.

I hummed a coffee mug at his head.

"_Crap! _Jesus - "

"WHERE!?"

Both of our heads swiveled around on our necks at the fake-excited yell. I rolled my eyes, barely holding back a grin. "...Hey, Thales."

"So what's all this about The Dude Upstairs?" she asked, bouncing into the room and throwing herself on Nico's bed. "Apparently you have some contact with him...which surprises me, because I'm almost sure you're going directly to Hell."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," he grumbled, flicking her between the eyes. "And no, I was about to curse because Percy hummed a _fricking coffee mug _at my _head_."

"Well," she said sensibly, yanking on a piece of his hair, "I'm sure that if you would be a sensitive, sensible, intelligent person for once in your life, no one would chuck anything at your head."

"Thank you," I stuck in. "And you're rather cheerful today. Back together with What's-his-name, are you?"

I narrowly dodged a pillow aimed at my head. "Yes, I am. And I've been going out with him since high school, Percy; I know you know his name."

"Yeah, so? I don't like him, Thalia. He just gives off...this bad vibe. Like...like..."

"He feels like a traitor," Nico put bluntly, which probably wasn't the wisest thing to do when sitting next to said person's girlfriend. "_OW!_"

Thalia rubbed her hand as Nico cowered on the opposite end of the bed. "Luke," she said, issuing a glare in my direction, "is not and never will be a traitor. He has never cheated on me - "

" 's far as you know..._OW!"_

"Do you have a goddamn _deathwish_, di Angelo? Huh? Is that it? 'Cause lemme tell you, I'm good at granting wishes..."

A little scream emerged from the bundle that was Nico, and he shuffled sideways until he plummeted to the floor. "...ow..."

Thalia rolled her bright blue eyes and tossed a messy, wavy strand of black hair over a shoulder. "Dear god, you two are stupid. Anyway. Why were you humming things at Nico's head, Perce? I'll admit it's a great way to pass the time, but you don't usually do it."

"He's just being Nico."

"That explains it...but what's to explain your less-the-sunshine-y mood, Messer. Jackson?"

I sighed, flopping down onto my mattress. "I'm gonna fail Stats, and if I fail..."

"...You can't graduate..." she finished. I saw a look pass across her face, and then she suddenly brightened up like a tiny sun. _Shit_.

"Oh, Pe-ercy!" she sang. _Shit, shit, shit... _"I've just had an absolutely _wonderful _idea..." she said, standing up and dancing over to my bed, where she attempted to pull me up. "D'you know that sign-up board in the main building right outside the office?"

"Yeah," I said, resisting her efforts and remaining a near-lifeless, gelatinous mass on the mattress.

"We-ell," she grinned, "there is also a sign up board for _tutors_."

I froze, my green eyes locking onto her blue ones in utter disbelief. "No. No way. Never, nunca, uh-uh, when it's a cold day in Hell. I _refuse _to be subjected to humiliation by some freaking nerdy _Poindexter _who wouldn't know the _meaning _of the words surfing, party, or date. NO."

She sighed and released my hands. "Look. You need the help to graduate, and if I graduate without you Mom will have a _flying frenzy fit_, and I think we all know how much fun those are."

On the floor, Nico shuddered in fear.

"So? I am _not_ asking a tutor for help."

"Fine," she sighed, giving up on me. She walked to the door, tapping Nico with her foot. "I'll see you guys later," she promised (threatened?), giving a backward salute as she left, slamming the door behind her. A picture of Nico's mom fell off the wall.

He looked out of his little ball-o'-Nico (TM) and peered cautiously around the room. "Is she really gone?"

I would've laughed, but it was a legitimate fear. Nothing pleased Thalia more (well, okay, some things did, but she loved this a lot) than lying in wait around a corner for some poor, unsuspecting person (usually me) who thought that she had left. I swear, last time I thought Nico had wet himself...but it was only his soup.

I sighed, rolling into a sitting position. "C'mon, cuz. We have to get ready..."

"Why-y-y-y?" he whined, rolling around on the floor. "I'm _tired_."

"And I'm totally not. But really, we promised Grover we'd go on those blind dates with him at that fancy restaurant, remember?"

"That's tonight?"

"Sadly."

He groaned and got to his feet. "I hate Grover's blind date adventures. It always, _always_, turns out badly. Like, you remember that time with those upperclassman lacrosse players?"

"What, you mean the one where you ended up on a blind date with Bianca? No, not at all. Care to refresh my memory?"

"Oh shut up," he laughed, tossing a throw pillow halfheartedly at me. "C'mon. Shower time."

_Eugh_.

* * *

Okay, so we had showered, cleaned ourselves up, and looked relatively decent/respectable. Now to find Grover.

"What do you mean, they don't serve enchiladas here?!"

There he was.

"Hey, G-man," I called out to the frustrated-looking guy in a nice suit. He turned and his face lit up.

"Thank you guys so much for coming...did you know that they - "

"Don't serve enchiladas here?" I finished, grinning.

"Grover," Nico sighed, "It's a really high class restaurant. I think the chefs here consider _enchilada_ a dirty word."

I snorted. "Yeah, along with _burrito_, _flapjack_, and _cookie_."

Grover moaned and buried his face in his hands. "Why?!"

Nico laughed and patted him on the back. "It'll be okay, Grover. As long as none of these chicks are ugly and none of them are my sister. If they're either of the above two, it'll be a very long night for you, my friend."

Grover shuddered briefly before turning to me. "Okay, I'm with some girl named Zoë, Nico, you're with...uh..._Clarisse_, that was it! And Percy, you're with...um...Annie Bell?"

"Annabeth," a smooth voice from behind him corrected. Turning, we saw a beautiful dark-haired girl in a silver dress, her eyes focused on Grover. "You're Grover Underwood, right?"

"Y-yeah," he gulped.

"Zoë Nightshade," she said, holding out her hand, presumably for Grover to kiss it. He shook it, pumping up and down violently. She blinked rapidly, a bit shell-shocked from the enthusiastic greeting. "Um...my friends, Clarisse and Annabeth, will be coming shortly...and...you are their dates, I presume?" she asked, turning an appraising dark eye on us.

Nico and I gulped and nodded simultaneously. She raised an eyebrow. "Who are you with tonight?" she asked Nico.

"Uh...Clarisse, was her name? Right, G-man?"

Grover nodded and said something that sounded like, "Gah."

"And you will be dating Annabeth," she continued, turning to me. "...I suppose you three are bearable enough."

...I_ think_ that was a compliment.

"Dammit, Annabeth, how the bloody hell is this my effing fault?!"

We all jumped at the loud, bellowing female voice, and Zoë let out a long-suffering sigh. "Here comes Clarisse."

Nico visibly paled, color draining away from his face.

He then blinked once - twice - three times at the source of the noise.

It was a beautifully slender girl, with wavy light-brown hair and athletically tanned skin. A scowl was set in her face, and she was shoving a cell phone back into her purse. "Hey, Zoë. Annabeth told us just to go in and sit, as apparently I left my straightener on her dress..." She descended into a fit of grumbling, punctuated with curses that would make a sailor blush.

Zoë rolled her eyes. "Clarisse," she said softly, taking her friend by the arm, "these are our dates. There's yours right there...um...what's your name?"

"Nico," he squeaked. "Nico di Angelo."

Clarisse raised a thin eyebrow at him but said nothing. She sort of drifted to his side to stand.

Grover actually began to speak: "So, um, maybe we should, uh, go on in, right? If - if Annabeth said to, then I guess - "

"Oh, stuff it already. Let's just go in," Clarisse said impatiently, pushing past Grover and Zoë and heading into the restaurant.

"You must excuse her," Zoë said softly. "She has all of her mother's looks and all of her father's temperament, which isn't exactly a good thing."

"Who was her father, a demon?" Nico hissed under his breath. Grover and I elbowed him simultaneously.

Zoe flipped her smooth dark hair over one shoulder, a regal expression set on her face. "Come," she said, "we had best go make sure Clarisse doesn't get into _too _much trouble."

* * *

How was it possible for someone so delicate to cause so much pain? 

First, she ticked off the maître'd, causing us to get booted from the Reservations list. That meant we had to wait over an hour for a table. More than one time, Clarisse suggested leaving, but Zoë refused to let us go. Why, I have no idea.

After we were seated, she was rude to the waiter, which pretty much assured me that we would get our food spit in. Luckily, Zoë calmed him down with the promise of a large tip. (Which reminded me of exactly how little cash I had on my person.)

Then she began to work on Nico.

Now, let me say something about Nico. He's my cousin, and as such I know him very well. (It's a kind of tight-knit family. Sort of.) So I know his limits…and they are not to be tested. See, he can be a very sweet, kind person. He knows how to make polite conversation, he has a great sense of humor, and he's good at self-deprecation too. Great.

But he has an incredible temper.

It's very, very hard to make Nico angry. It's even harder to make Nico furious. But when you do, pray to whatever god you know that you can safely fly to, say, Thailand before he gets his hands on you, because when he does, it's payback time.

And it is safe to say that he can make life a living Hell.

Clarisse – darling little Clarisse – didn't know any of this. So she began to nag Nico about his suit, about his hair, about how his last name was the same as the last name of the top diamond store in the world (it was owned by his dad, my uncle). She began to nag him about his interests, his hobbies, his family, what he did in his free time…and when she knew all of that, the real torture began.

She began to tease him, even flat out insult him. I saw the warning signs, and I tried to signal to Grover to get the hell out of here, but it was too late.

"SHUT UP! YOU CAN GO TO HELL, FOR ALL I CARE! YOU ARE A COMPLETE BITCH, AND I HATE YOU!"

The entire restaurant fell silent. Clarisse looked blown away. Slowly, slowly, her cheeks flushed a dark crimson. Her eyes darkened, and she stood up, matching Nico in height.

"You listen to me, and you listen well. Now you've pissed me off, and when someone makes me mad I don't well forget it. You'll regret those words, Nico di Angelo."

And with that final threat, she stormed off. Nico followed briefly afterward, telling me that he'd be in the dorm. Zoë stood hastily and dashed after her friend, and Grover, love-struck fool that he was, followed. Why? I don't know.

As I prepared to leave, something occurred to me:

Who had stayed to wait for Annabeth?

Sighing, I made my way to the front of the restaurant, determined to do the right thing.

* * *

I waited outside for fifteen minutes before I saw anyone. 

I was checking my phone for the time when I heard a clear, smooth voice.

"Um…excuse me?"

I looked up and had to almost physically reach up to keep my jaw from dropping.

In front of me stood an absolutely beautiful, model-like woman. She wore a knee-length silky gray dress that swayed in a soft breeze. Her hair was like gold, falling in ringlets to her waist. It was hastily tied back in some sort of bun, and some bobby pins were stuck in for good measure.

_God, please be Annabeth_.

"Yes?"

"Um, I was wondering if you had seen two girls, my age…one has dark hair, the other has light brown, and – "

"Zoë and Clarisse," I said. "So you must be Annabeth."

She nodded, smiling. "Great! So…uh…you're my date, right?"

"Yeah – uh, I'm Percy. Percy Jackson."

"Nice to meet you, Percy," she said, her gray eyes lighting up as she grinned, taking my hand in a small handshake. "So the others are inside?"

I winced. "About that…"

She sighed, rolling her eyes. "What did Clarisse do now?"

"She…well…it was kind of Nico's fault – he was her date – but in all fairness she goaded him first. He kind of…um…blew up at her over dinner…called her a bitch in front of the entire restaurant…and they all stormed out. I didn't want you to think we'd left you, so…"

She laughed sadly, shaking her head. "Story of my life."

She looked so sad that, just for a moment, I felt some of the obvious misery she was feeling. I sighed and the smiled at her. "…Listen. I don't exactly have enough on me for this place, but…do you like pizza?"

She looked up at me, her eyes happy again. She laughed. "Hell yes."

* * *

"And so then – I kid you not – this _disgustingly huge_ burrito slaps me right in the face! I mean, I'm talking as big as, like, your torso! Dead serious!" 

I was almost crying, I was laughing so hard.

Annabeth and I sat across from one another in a small pizza shop downtown. Half-eaten salads lay abandoned on the table as we sipped our drinks, waiting for our pizza. We were swapping classic food fight stories.

"I think," I said, chuckling, "that in terms of deadly projectiles, burritos are right up their next to heat-seeking missiles."(1)

"Oh yeah," she agreed, taking a sip from her Coke. "Do you have any idea how fast cheap beans in a burrito can dry on your face? I felt like I was wearing squishy Saran-wrap all over…I could barely breathe, and for the next two weeks _everything _smelled like beans." She shuddered. "To this day, I cannot, in good conscience, eat beans."

I laughed. "So like, no seven layer dip or anything? And I'm guessing Mexican food is a big no-no."

"Nunca," she said, giggling. She had gone for the first five minutes in the pizza parlor with her hair down, and then she had hissed in frustration. She had yanked out her ponytail holder and tied her gold curls up in a ponytail. A few little ringlets fell in front of her face.

We had made an abrupt pit stop at a Walgreens and bought some nice, normal clothes…and flip-flops. Especially for Annabeth, who swore her blisters would never stop bleeding.

"Here you guys go," the waitress said, lowering the pizza onto the table. "Half ham-and-pineapple, half anchovies, right?"

"Right-o," I replied. When she left, I turned to Annabeth. "_Anchovies_?"

"Pineapple?" she countered, raising an eyebrow. Then she shook her head, laughing. "Whatever." She looked down at her pizza and licked her lips. "He-ere, fishy fishy fishy!"

In between gusts of laughter, I thought that maybe Grover had, for once, done something right.

* * *

Author's Note:

Alright! My first "real" story, PJO or otherwise. I know that the humor is practically nonexistant, but I'm trying to fix that. And chapters will be at least this length or longer (probably longer), but updates will be spaztic. Sometimes I just can't write, y'know? (Like right now.)

So, uh, like it said in the summary, this is an AU. This means "Alternate Universe". Thus, the parents who were gods are not gods. They are, instead, very rich businessmen. For example, Hades owns a chain of jewelery stores. Poseidon probably is in the ship business, and Zeus is more than likely founder of an airline. -shrugs-

So yeah. Um...that's about all for now. Please review or PM letting me know how you liked it, what needs to change...and any suggestions for future chapters would be great as well!

Thanks very much...

- dnrl


	2. Chapter 2

**It Takes Two**

_By: dnrl_

* * *

Percy is a suffering student of marine biology at NYU. Against his wishes, his cousin signs him up for a tutor, and he resigns himself to endless boredom...but the tutor he gets definitely isn't what he was expecting. Percabeth, AU

* * *

Chapter Two: When You Assume...

_"Oh my god, Percy got laid."_

I almost hung up. _So tempting._

No. Bad Percy. Do not hang up on cousin.

"No, I did not get laid."

_"...Then Percy's about to get laid."_

"I have no intention of getting laid tonight."

_"Why can't you just be like all the other little boy - oh my god. Are you gay, Percy?"_

"...Are you drunk?"

_"Only a little."_

"Define 'a little.'"

_"Um...hey, you! No, not you, asswipe, the other guy - yeah, you. How much liquid is in three bottles of tequila and five margaritas?"_

"Shit, cousin. What have you done now? Or, more precisely, what has _he _done now?"

_"Why are bartenders so pretty, Percy?"_

"Because it gets them more tips?"

_"I think it's because God hates me. I think...I think that God hates me so much that he thinks that I don't deserve love."_

"Thalia - "

_"No, really. Like, am I not good enough? Do I not try hard enough? Why won't he love me, Percy? All that bartender had to do was **look** at him and he started salivating...so I left."_

"Thalia, where are you?"

_"I...I don't know, Percy. I'm all alone here, me and my shots and the bartender and those guys in the corner."_

"...Thalia, can you put the bartender on the phone?"

_"I dunno, are you gonna try to hook up with her too? Because - "_

"No, Thalia. I just wanna find you, okay?"

_"Okay. Hey, hey you...will you talk to my cuz for me? Pretty please?"_

I sighed quietly. After walking Annabeth home and returning to my dorm, I found it empty. Nico, I knew, was probably with his sister Bianca - the only one who could calm him down properly after a rage. Grover...god only knew what that guy got up to at night. But Thalia...I was expecting Thalia to be there because she always wanted to know all of the juicy details. Or just to have an excuse to make out with Luke on my couch, because she knew I hated it. You say tomato, I say pain in the ass. Same difference.

Only she wasn't there.

So I assumed that she and Luke had gone out.

But then she didn't come back in another hour.

So I went to her dorm room - her _empty _dorm room.

She wouldn't be sleeping at Luke's - she believed in "chastity until marriage." She wouldn't be sleeping at a friend's, because all of her friends either lived in Greece, Italy, or in the dorm hall - and sleepovers weren't allowed in the dorm hall. So where, dear reader, was my cousin?

At a bar.

The fact that that was the first thing that entered my mind says something about her lifestyle, but I prefer not to think about it much. So does she. So does just about everyone, because, as my mom says, it's easier to deal with a problem when you don't have to stare it in the eye.

Moving on from life outlooks, I immediately started calling.

See, Thalia has seven cell phones. One is for long-distance; one is for business calls (her father makes her help out with business even though she's only twenty-four); one is for family (we have a big family, okay?); one is for emergencies (built in tracking device); one is for calls to Italy (special discount); one is for calls to Greece (same deal); and the last one is for everyday use.

So she has seven phones, but not enough common sense to actually use them for their intended purpose. She usually carries all seven with her at the same time (seven phones!), but as she hadn't answered the first six, I was forced to call the emergency phone.

Which she had dropped in a toilet, disabling the tracker.

Thus I was talking to a barkeep at 3:37 a.m. on a Monday morning, trying to track down my now drunk cousin who was apparently breaking up with her boyfriend. Again.

_"...Uh...hello?"_

"Hi. This is Percy, Thalia's cousin. Listen, could I please get the address of your bar so I could come get her?"

_"Hey. Um...yeah! Yeah, sure. It's, uh, seven forty seven, corner of Hudson and Canal. Right down the street from Strangefellows (1)."_

"Right. I know the place. Lightning Streak, right?"

_"Yeah. So you'll be right down?"_

"Of course. Could you please tell Thalia?"

_"Sure thing, dude."_

"Thanks."

_Click._

I pressed "End" as I snatched my keys up from the dresser top. Walking to the parking garage, my mind was dwelling on Thalia.

Okay, that's a lie.

I was thinking about golden curls and silver-gray dresses and stormy eyes and slender ankles and burritos and how she would look beautiful even with a cheap burrito plastered to her face...about Annabeth. Annabeth...uh. Crap. I didn't even know her last name!

I did, however, know her phone number.

_"Here." A scrap of a napkin, scrawled on hastily as she climbed out. "Just in case we need some pizza, yeah?"_

_"Yeah."_

Sad thing?

I had already memorized it.

Barely two hours after she had given me the number, and I had it memorized. And I am not a smart person; I barely even have a memory, let alone know what one is. And yet I had memorized this girl's phone number in less than one hundred and twenty minutes. Jesus.

I pulled up into the parking space outside of _Lightning Strike_ to find Thalia attempting to prop herself up on a telephone pole.

She was dressed up - silky black dress, knee-length, swishy skirt, low cut. Silver belt just underneath her chest. Little silver handbag dangling precariously from her wrist. Strappy silver stilettos. Lipstick, blush, eyeshadow, all dark tones. Painted nails, up-do for her hair - a silver-and-diamond clip Uncle Hades had given her for her birthday last year.

_Shit._

I got out and opened her door, gently easing her into the Volvo's leather seat (_Annabeth sat here two hours ago_). She was giggling insanely, humming "I've Got A Lovely Bunch Of Coconuts." Her eyes were crossed, and a dazed look was splashed across her features. I sighed and slid behind the wheel, pulling away and speeding towards the dorms.

"Pe-ercy!"

"How much did you really have, Thalia?"

"A lot." She frowned, a slight dent appearing between her eyebrows. "A lot a lot. The bartender complained until I paid her."

"How much?"

"A...a thousand?"

Well, that did tend to shut people up.

"Alright. Okay, cuz. Just...just close your eyes, okay? We're gonna be home soon. I'll lay you down and get you some water and blankets and pillows, and you can go straight to sleep, yeah?"

She hiccupped. I took it as a yes, made sure she was buckled in, and drove home.

* * *

It was a sad testament to our four years of college when the doorman for Thalia's builing took one look at us, rolled his eyes, and buzzed us in.

I was carrying her bridal-style at this point, and she was nearly asleep, her arms looped around my neck. She was drowsily humming an off-key rendition of "Mary Had A Little Lamb" under her breath, her eyelids dropping shut and flickering open again. I fished for the keys to her dorm on my keychain, and I had just inserted the key when I felt Thalia's sleepy body tense.

I turned, and he was standing at the other end of the hall.

His dirty blonde hair was messed up, his tie was undone, and his nice dress shirt was untucked. His hands were casually stuck in his designer pants pockets, and he was watching us with his blue eyes. "Nicely manouvered," he commented, leaning on the wall. "I could help."

"You could also go to hell," I suggested, shifting Thalia's weight onto my other arm. She buried her face in my neck. "I kind of get the feeling that Thalia would also suggest it at the moment."

He sighed, and for a moment I almost felt compassion for the guy. Then he started talking. "Look, it was all physical, okay? You're a guy, y'know...what it feels like when you're just _floored_ by this one chick..." Sleazeball.

"Yes, and then I tend to get to know the chick and get emotionally involved before screwing her in a bathroom stall."

"I can't wait until marriage like she can!" he said, pointing at Thalia. "She's so much stronger than I'll ever be, being able to wait like that for someone she loves - "

"And if you really loved her, then _you'd_ wait," I snapped at him. "You wouldn't go off and let your dick drive your actions, alright? I don't give a damn how much business your dad does with mine, you hurt her and you will pay for it. Go screw your bartender." I entered Thalia's dorm, yanked my key out of the lock, and slammed it shut, locking it firmly behind me.

Luckily Thalia's dad had given her enough to get her own private on-campus dorm...as opposed to my dad, who had made a deal with his brother and gotten me a room with Nico. Not that I was complaining, but really, my own room would be great.

She was tense in my arms, shaking, and it took me a minute to realize that there was wetness on my neck and that she was crying. Sobbing. All because of that asshole in the hallway.

I sighed and laid her down on her sofa. I pulled her hair down and took off her shoes, wiping at her mascara-slicked, tear-drenched cheeks with a Pizza Hut napkin. I tugged the tapestry blanket - a Christmas gift from my mom three years ago - over her, and I brought in an empty garbage can from the kitchen for the next morning.

I left a note on a purple post-it (she had thousands) that told her to call me, stuck it on the fridge, and left.

* * *

When I got back to my dorm, I ran across Bianca in the hall.

Bianca was a year older than Nico, Thalia, and I, and had graduated last year as head of her class with a business and accounting double major. She was taking over the company when her dad retired, a fact for which her little brother wa eternally grateful.

Despite her having graduated, she still worked here as a teacher's aide to earn some extra cash. Bianca had never liked the "born into money" deal, and always made her own way. It was especially handy when Nico had episodes...like now, for instance.

She was pulling her long, silky black hair away from her face when she saw me. She smiled, but it was a tired gesture. "He's calmed down now. He wouldn't really tell me what happened...something about a gorgeous bitch and expensive restaurants."

I shrugged. "Grover had a blind date."

She winced. "Ah. Got it. Well, I need to go...I have a class in..." she glanced at her watch and cursed. "Two hours."

I grinned at her. "Sleep. It's good for you."

She mock-glared at me before giving me a brief hug. "Thanks for taking care of those two, Percy. It's not easy."

"Well, I've got you for help. That makes it better."

She laughed, waved farewell, and dashed down the hall.

I sighed and entered the room, glancing at my own cell to catch the time. I mentally cursed. Four thiry in the damn morning...Jesus.

"Hey, Nic," I said before collapsing onto my bed. He gave a little wave from where he sat glued to _Final Fantasy X_.

"You plannin' on going to bed any time soon, cousin?"

"Dunno. What time is it?"

"Four thirty something."

"...It's the last class, we won't be doing anything anyway."

I rolled my eyes and curled into my bed, not even bothering to unmake it. I just tugged a blanket over me and drifted away.

* * *

I was awoken by a sound flick between my eyes.

I cursed and flailed around a bit, feeling like a fish that was just thrown out of the bowl and into a fire. Screw the frying pan. No one liked them anyway.

See, this is why I don't stay up late…and when I do, I don't wake up early. I tend to get a bit…more idiotic than usual.

I flicked open one eyelid to find a tiny black cat perched on my chest.

"…the hell? Nico, do we have a cat?"

"It's Grover's new best friend. He dropped it off this morning with like twenty pounds of cat food because his dorm won't take pets."

You've got to be kidding me.

The malicious little creature eyed me with evil intent glowing in its beady little gray eyes. This did not bode well for me. Not at all.

I picked the thing up by the scruff of the neck, ignoring its hiss of its royal displeasure. I sat up and stared at it. "Did he name it yet?"

"No, he said we could have the honor."

"Lucifer."

"…No."

"Satan."

"…No. And Hades isn't an option either."

"I wouldn't insult your dad by naming this abomination after him."

"It's a kitten, Percy. Not a sin against mankind."

"It hit me!"

"…Damn, it is too early to wake you up. I waited until ten…"

I sighed. "What are we going to name this thing, Nico?"

"Uh…Shadow?"

"…No."

He sighed. "I don't know. Maybe we should treat it like family and give it a mythological name."

"Makes sense."

"Nemesis?"

"I like it."

"I was kidding. Um…"

I stared at it for a few minutes, its gray eyes reminding me of another pair. But really, that would be a bit obvious…

"Athena," I said quietly, thinking of the little that Annabeth had told me of her family last night. The name was familiar – who didn't own something created by Athena? – but I doubted that Nico would connect it to Annabeth. He wasn't that smart.

"Athena," he agreed, coming over to rub the little fuzzbutt on the nose. "Sounds good."

That was when I got the call from Thalia, and everything went straight to hell.

A/N Welcome to chapter two! My apologies for the long wait...I was stuck. D:

Chapter One (1): It's a reference to _Titan's Curse_...when they're at the dam snack bar. :D

Chapter Two (1): For those of you who know the bar I'm talking about...Taylor kicks ass!

Anyway, thanks for being so patient with me! I'm really working towards it...finals are almost done. -sob- TT-TT

Um, to answer a few reviewer questions (can't remember if I got you, and this should avoid repeat questions):

Oldmanmah: No, Thalia is Percy's cousin.

Moondragonheart: Yeah, you got it right! It is from Titan's Curse. Battle was so good! -nomnom-

bubblegum11: I figure that since Ares has a thing for Aphrodite, he likes pretty chicks. So Clarisse's mom should be fairly good looking, I think. And pineapple pizza is love.

Thank you guys so much for your reviews and love. Hopefully I'll update again soon!

- dnrl


	3. Chapter 3

**It Takes Two**

_By: dnrl_

* * *

Percy is a suffering student of marine biology at NYU. Against his wishes, his cousin signs him up for a tutor, and he resigns himself to endless boredom...but the tutor he gets definitely isn't what he was expecting. Percabeth, AU

* * *

Chapter Three: Maybe Misery

* * *

I paced.

Athena and Nico watched me, waiting.

I paced some more.

Athena stared. Nico stared.

I stopped and looked at them. "Is she insane, or just stupid?"

"Insane."

Athena looked as though she agreed with Nico, and I shot her a look. "Shush, you. You don't even know who we're talking about."

Nico raised an eyebrow. "I thought we were talking about Thalia."

"We are."

"Well then. I do know her."

"Not you," I said, rolling my eyes. "_Her_. Athena."

"...The _kitten?_"

"Look at those eyes. She's agreeing with us, and she doesn't even know Thalia yet!"

Nico shot me a worried glance - a _should I tie him down before the men in the white coats show up?_ look. I've seen that look a couple of times before. Hell, I'd given that look. A lot, especially with my family.

"Anyway," I said, moving on from Athena and her supernatural ability to understand human-ese, "did I not tell her no tutor? No way in hell? Did she not _agree_ to _respect_ my _wishes?_"

Nico snorted. "Maybe you really are insane, Percy. Thalia? Respect? Pah. Y'know, I thought that you'd have learned that after the cockroach incident."

I shuddered. Thalia, Nico, and I had been six, and Thalia had been my idol. I'd told her my greatest fear: cockroaches. She had nodded, all serious, and told me to go into the back bedroom in the house and she'd kill all of the roaches and make it safe for me.

She locked me in the room and then told me about the seventeen cockroaches that lived in the king-sized mattress.

"Cockroaches aside," I said, shaking off the vestiges of childhood memories (ah, memories...), "how did she not understand that I didn't want a tutor?"

He frowned, looking at the floor. He absentmindedly stroked Athena's fur. "I don't know that it's so much a case of misunderstanding as it is of complete and utter disregard for your wishes. Although that could be just me."

"If I had the energy or the time I'd throw something at you," I told him.

"You'd miss. You have horrible aim," he replied, waving away the threat as though it were nothing. Which, in reality, it was. But I digress.

"I just don't see - "

I heard a loud pounding on the door and I groaned. "She was drunk off of her ass last night, and yet she still managed to wake up before me, get to classes and an appointment with my nerdy tutor on time, and come over here to harass me while I'm still in my boxers. Does that seem human to you?"

"...yeah, we established that Thales wasn't human like, oh, twenty two and a half years ago. You know, when we first _met._"

I rolled my eyes at my cousin and went to answer the door, cursing under my breath.

"Thalia, _please_ - "

"_Percy?!"_

I jerked back, eyes wide as they took in the sight in the hallway.

Thalia stood, looking gorgeous and fashionable as ever, blinking in surprise at the person next to her - the person that had shocked me. The person that knew my name. The gorgeous person with a killer fashion sense and gorgeous blonde hair and stormy gray eyes.

"...Annabeth?"

* * *

"So wait, let me see if I've got this straight," said Thalia. We (Thalia, Nico, Grover, Annabeth, and myself) were dressed (surprisingly) and sitting in a circle of plushy couches at out neighborhood coffee shop (not so surprisingly). "Grover sets himself, Nico the Emo, and Percy the Surfing Wunderkid up on a triple blind date with the only female captain of the archery club, the captain of the women's football team, and the president of the National Honor Society. Zoe winds up with Grover, Nico gets stuck with Clarisse, and Percy, by some fluke, catches Annabeth. In the half hour it takes Annabeth to get to the restaurant, Clarisse is gone, Nico is M.I.A. and possibly dead, Grover is stalking Zoe back to her dorm room, and Percy is left all by his onesies in the parking lot waiting for Annabeth. Said couple meet, shake hands, maul a Walgreens clothes rack, get pizza, and go home, at which point Percy realizes that _I_ am missing in action and drunk and alone and very, very vulnerable."

Here Nico snorted. Thalia hit him with her laptop case and continued.

"So Percy somehow tracks me down and brings me home, where we see - well - um - he leaves me on my couch (thank you for the can, by the way) and returns home, where Bianca has brought Nico back to his dubiously named senses. Shut up Nico. Yes, I know you haven't said anything, but you're thinking it. So stop. Now. Anyway, so I wake up, do my whole technicolor yawn schmuck - oh, stop being such a baby, Grover, I didn't say _puke..._whoops - and I get a call from the tutoring service I signed Percy up for. They've found a tutor, a good friend of mine who saw my name on the board and volunteered."

"A good friend?" I asked.

"We've known each other all throughout college," Annabeth said, sipping some kind of chocolate swirling thing. "We met on orientation. She called me an idiot and slapped me."

"I was on my period," Thalia defended, scowling. Annabeth laughed.

"It's okay, Thalia. I've told you that for four years now."

"And I've not believed you for four years now."

Annabeth rolled her eyes and looked at me. "Has she always been like this, or is it only since college?"

"Always," Nico and I confirmed together. Thalia glared but said nothing, sipping at her cappucinno and idly plotting our slow deaths. "Always."

"Nico, come on," Grover said. Nico shot him a confused look, and Grover rolled his eyes. "Biology? Project? 200 points? Due tomorrow?"

Nico's pale skin grew paler still. "Shit."

"No, decomposing human flesh, but close enough."

Thalia raised an eyebrow.

"Study on the effects of rainwater, damp earth, and pressure on a cadaver," Nico said, rising. "I love Biology."

They left, leaving behind their coffee cups and used napkins. Thalia also stood, brushing crumbs off of her skinny jeans. "Yeah. Cool. I'm gonna go hit the pool for a couple of hours...then run by the TA's office and pick up an extra study guide. See you...on Friday, yeah? We are driving to the airport together, right?"

I nodded. "I hate our family."

"Me too," she said. "Reunions are death."

"Hell," I agreed. Annabeth cast a bemused look towards us. Thalia waved farewell and exited, her bag swinging at her side.

"Family reunion?" she asked. I grimaced.

"Yeah. My family...weird as it is, my dad and his siblings try to keep some sort of semblance of passable relationship between them. So they have this reunion every two years. It's this weekend."

"Ugh," she said. "Finals."

"Yeah."

"So...um...what's so bad about your family?"

I shrugged. Uncomfortable topic. "Like...our moms - Nico's, Thalia's, and mine - were all best friends in high school. Not like, 'oh my god, bffs!' but the real deal. They went to the same college...and then after they graduated, they met our dads. They got married...tried to fix some of the tension in the family. It backfired. Things are just...really awkward right now."

She got the message and backed off. "So, anyway," she said, sipping her frappucino, "Stats, huh?"

"Sadly," I agreed, eyeing my lone bagel that sat forlornly on its plate. I had originally bought three. Thalia was hungry and Nico and Grover split on, which left one for me. God, I was so hungry -

"Cool, bagel," Annabeth said with a grin, swooping down and seizing my breakfast. I sighed mentally. She was cute. I let it go.

"So, like...how is this gonna work, exactly?"

"Well," she said slowly, spreading cream cheese over my breakfast, "I figure that we can meet on the days you have Statistics to review the material you covered in that class...but that's after we play catch-up."

"Ketchup?"

She snorted and grinned at me. "Catch-up. We need to go over the notes that you already have for Statistics so that I can see what we really need to focus on."

"Everything."

"You can't be that bad."

I shot her a deadpan look. "Are you serious? Yes, I can be and am that bad. I am a hopeless cause. I am an idiot with less memory than a goldfish. No, seriously. Do you know their memory span? Three seconds."

She was laughing now.

"And you're laughing at me," I teased, grinning. "Great, that boosts my self-esteem."

She laughed harder, her gray eyes sparkling. I felt my breath catch in my throat and my heart skipped what felt like five beats as the sunlight from the window hit her loose golden curls, throwing a halo over her. _Beautiful._

"Percy...Percy?"

I blinked out of my trance and grinned. "Yeah. Still in here...as much as I can be, I guess."

She smiled at me. "C'mon. Let's go back to your dorm...we can go over your notes. When do you have the exam?"

"Last, thank god. It starts at ten on Thursday, and end time is set for two. So I have four hours to take a five hundred question exam, plus short answers, plus essays, on a subject that I do not get at all." I turned to her, my face pleading. "Please tell me you can work miracles."

She shook her head with a smile and tugged me out of the chair. "Great time to find out, isn't it?"

I stood abruptly, and the surge of force flung her against me. We both fell back into the chair in a heap of tangled limbs, blonde curls tickling my cheeks. She was so soft in my arms for the brief moment in which we were too shocked to do anything - it was like she fit. She clicked. She was _made_ to be here, in my arms, on my lap, her head tucked beneath mine.

And then the moment was broken, and sorrys were exchanged...but I couldn't forget that feeling of _rightness_ that I had had when she was on my chest, leaning into me like she belonged there. It was perfection, poetry in motion, as it were. I had only had that feeling once before in my life; it was my first trip to the beach. It didn't matter if it was raining or if there were no waves, the ocean was beautiful, amazing, and an inexorable force in my four-year-old life.

The fact that I had this feeling about a girl that I met the night before - a girl who I barely knew - well, it...

It scared me.

A/N:

KILL ME PLEASE.

D:

Sorry for the delay...I'm also working on the second chapter of _Into the Ocean_, but no promises on quality. And yes, I know that this chapter is shorter than normal...I'm not really that fond of it, but it was the only thing I could yank out. DDDD:

So um yeah. Review with pointers, ideas, corrections, anything really. Flames are cool to, if you want. Marshmallow roast! :D Make my day.

Thanks so much for reading...see you guys next month. For this fic, anyway. ...Have a cookie.

- dnrl


	4. Chapter 4

**It Takes Two**

_By: dnrl

* * *

  
_

Percy is a suffering student of marine biology at NYU. Against his wishes, his cousin signs him up for a tutor, and he resigns himself to endless boredom...but the tutor he gets definitely isn't what he was expecting. Percabeth, AU

* * *

Chapter Four: Any Way You Want It

* * *

"I told you I was bad," I said sympathetically, smiling.

"But I didn't think that anyone could be…" She gestured widely with her hands, face dismayed.

"_This_ bad," I completed, grin approaching Cheshire Cat-capacity.

"Well."

I laughed, resting my head sideways on my arm, looking up at my (adorably) frustrated teacher. Curls of shimmering gold were falling haphazardly out of her loose ponytail, and her lower lip was caught between her teeth. She gnawed away, tapping her pencil against my Statistics textbook. Finally, her steely gray eyes turned on me.

"…Break?"

"Is that a plea I hear in your voice, Miss Chase?" I teased, sitting up and stretching.

"Yes," she said, whimpering for dramatic effect. She stuck out her lower lip.

I grinned, rising. I offered her a hand and pulled her up out of the armchair. "Where to, O Mighty Tutor?"

She flashed a smile. "I'm thinkin' Arby's," she said.

* * *

"OhmahgawsIthinmahmoufishonfiah."

Her hand flew to her nose to pinch the end before her Dr. Pepper could burst out. Tear of laughter sparkled in her eyes – eyes sparkling at my expense, mind you.

"I did tell you," she said, carefully trying not to smile, "not to order the Five Flaming Fajitas without at least two drinks beforehand." She offered hers to me, and I sucked it down greedily. "Oi! You're buying my refill."

"I'm buying the meal," I griped as feeling returned to my singed and dying tongue.

"And what a big boy you are," she cooed, smiling at me.

Despite our "break" having begun at four, it was fast approaching seven. It had taken us about half an hour to get to Arby's, only to find out that some kind of bomb threat had been made on the kitchen because of a cockroach in some mafia don's food or something. So Annabeth's hopes were dashed, and we wound up eating at Chevy's across the street.

And it had a waiting line literally out the door.

But seeing as we were tired and had nothing else to do, we sat in line.

For an hour and a half.

Thirty minutes in, I half-heartedly suggested that we leave.

"You don't really mean that," Annabeth said with utter certainty.

"No. But how would you know?"

Her eyes rolled, an amused smirk turning up the corners of her mouth. "Because you're like me, and I'm thinking that we've been sitting here for half an hour and like _hell_ are we giving up our spot. We are going to eat at this restaurant and we are going to _enjoy_ every single hard-earned bite."

"Go Team Jackson-Chase!"

"Oh, please," she scoffed, raising an amused eyebrow. "It is _so_ Chase-Jackson."

"Oh, you're right, ladies first."

"But that would make it Jackson-Chase," she smirked.

"Ouch," I cried, my hand over my heart. "How sorely your words wound me, fair lady."

"Such was their intent, good sir," she replied.

So after another hour of banter and waiting, our small plastic disc began a-buzzing, and we were given a tiny table next to the bathroom.

"Evening!" said the waiter, a kid not much younger than us.

"Well, what've you got?" I asked. I couldn't help myself from letting my Eric Idle (1) impersonation take over for a moment.

His eyebrows furrowed, but Annabeth picked it up.

"Have you got anything without spam?" she queried, her British accent apparent. She shot me a shared grin across the table as the waiter "um"d and "ah"d for a few moments before she cut him off.

"We're kidding," she said. "I'll have a Dr. Pepper to drink."

"Coke, please," I said.

As he walked away, still befuddled as anything, we burst out laughing.

"Children," she sighed when we were done, shaking her head with mock-sadness. "They just don't appreciate the classics anymore."

"Spam spam spam spam. Lovely spam! Wonderful spam!" I sang. She burst out into giggles.

"Stop," she cried. Her hands were over her ribs, and her eyes were filled with tears of laughter for the first (of many) times that evening. "No spam songs tonight?"

"Can I do the _Bruce's Philosopher Song_, then?" I pouted. "Please?"

"Later," she said, nodding. "We can sing it together as we race through town at sixty miles per hour."

"Quite right," I agreed.

"Nudge nudge, wink wink, say no more, say no more."

We kept the jokes up until the waiter came back with our drinks and tortilla chips and we placed our orders.

Which led to the Fajita Fiasco.

Yes, it does deserve capitals. Shush.

I paid and we left, she still mocking me for my poor dining choice. I scoffed.

"Says the girl who gagged on her tortilla chip."

"There was green stuff on it!" she defended heatedly, blushing and smiling at the same time.

"Sure there was."

"Hush, you! No speaking!" she reprimanded "sternly." The effect was somewhat diminished by her laughter.

We walked to my car, and true to her word, we hooked up her iPod and blasted _Bruce's Philosopher Song _all the way to her dorm.

* * *

"…Aristotle, Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle, and Hobbes was fond of his dram – and Rene Descartes was a drunken fart – 'I drink therefore I am!' Yes," we bellowed, "Socrates himself is particularly missed…a lovely little thinker but a bugger when he's pissed!"

Laughing, I drove her to the door of her dorm and walked her up to the building. She turned at the entrance, her smile lighting up the entire night sky. "That was fun, Percy," she said. "Entirely unproductive, but fun." Her smile softened into something sweeter, more gentle, and her hand gently brushed my face. Her eyes were tender and soothing, and I felt myself being pulled in.

Slowly, I stepped forwards just as she did. My hand reached up to trap hers against my cheek, and I felt, rather than saw, her take a huge breath. Her eyes were shining with the light of a million stars, and her cheeks were flushed, and _god_ was she beautiful. The feeling from this morning washed over me in wave after wave after wave, and I realized that her breath was washing over my lips and mine over hers.

We had the space of a single sheet of paper between our mouths. She blinked, and her eyelashes grazed my cheek. I exhaled sharply, and she shivered. Her eyes met mine, and then –

Headlights flashed in the driveway, and we broke apart instantaneously. We were both stammering and blushing, making excuses. She laughed a bit too loudly, waved brightly, and turned and fairly ran into her dorm.

I remained where I stood for a long time after that, the cool night wind blowing away the heat in my cheeks from my blush. I watched the stars move in the night sky, and that feeling stayed with me, softer now, but still stronger than anything I'd ever felt.

I couldn't name it.

Well, I could.

But I didn't want to.

Because it couldn't be true.

I couldn't possibly even think that I was falling in love.

There was no way.

* * *

A/N:

…

…

Aha.

-ducks flying projectiles-

Hey there, readers! How've…how've you guys been? For…um…heh…since June. And it's what, now, November? Aha. Hahaha. Missed me?

But, um, yeah. Pretty sure my block for this story is gone. But midterms are swift approaching, and I'm staying late after school for various clubs every day except Friday, so I'm a busy little girl right now. XD I really am trying to stay on top of this, though – I swear! Next chapter of Symphony is in the works (hopefully it won't turn out to be something else, like Yesterday's Feelings did…) and so is the next chapter for Fall Into The Sky. :)

Oh, right – footnotes.

(1) is a reference to the Monty Python "Spam" sketch, which is absolutely hysterical. For those poor people who have no knowledge of the awesome that is Monty Python, go to YouTube and search for the "Dead Parrot Sketch" by them. Hysterical. Also, _Bruce's Philosopher Song _is another piece of theirs that I find particularly amusing, in a nerdy sort of way. XD And so is "Nudge nudge, wink wink, say no more, say no more." And…yeah. They're just amazing.

See you guys soon!

- dnrl


	5. Chapter 5

A/N

Oh. Oh my.

Um, hi?

Since, uh, November?

Of last year.

Wow.

I feel sort of ashamed now.

BUT. BUT. BUT. I am updating. I have lots of time to write! Yes? Yes. Well, sort of. There's still that school thing, but that doesn't really matter, right? Right.

SO. I've updated _Into The Ocean_, and _Fall Into The Sky_ has another chapter in the works, and I'm formulating for _Bittersweet Symphony_. SO YEAH. I DO SO UPDATE SOMETIMES SORT OF NOT REALLY. (And yes, the caps were necessary.)

* * *

**It Takes Two**

_By: dnrl_

* * *

Percy is a suffering student of marine biology at NYU. Against his wishes, his cousin signs him up for a tutor, and he resigns himself to endless boredom...but the tutor he gets definitely isn't what he was expecting. Percabeth, AU

* * *

Chapter Five: Spider's Web

* * *

When I got home, there was a cat gnawing something on my bed.

I sighed, scooping up Athena and wrestling whatever she was chewing out of her mouth. It was rubbery – a piece of eraser, maybe? She wasn't giving it up without a fight, but I finally won the day. I didn't celebrate and rub my victory in her face or anything. (No, really.) (Okay, a bit.)

"Now what _is_ it?" I held it up close, squinting, and recoiled from the horrible smell. "Did _you_ make it smell this way?" I asked the kitten. She gave me a disdainful _oh please_ glance before squirming onto the floor and scampering under Nico's bed to play with his socks. I sighed and poked the smelly mystery item again.

It looked odd – an off-white color, with a strange texture to the surface. It was about the length of half of my pointer finger – and there was something weird on the end of it. It almost looked like…

"Hey, you found the rest of the finger!"

My eyes snapped onto my cousin's delighted face as he swooped in to snatch the smelly mystery item from my hands. "I'm sorry," I said, my voice a bit shaky. "Found the what?"

Nico looked up from the entrancing object and winced. "Oh. Um. My…fake rubber finger. From, um. A doll?"

I exhaled loudly through my nose, trying to control the volume of my voice. "Nico."

He looked increasingly panicked. "Okay, see, we weren't really supposed to bring our cadavers out of the classroom, but somebody spilled the formaldehyde and there was a really big fire and so the teacher just told us to take our corpse and go because we still had testing to do so we brought it back here and we didn't put it on your bed, honest, I made Grover put it on mine – okay, really he made me put it on mine, I wanted to put it on yours, but the point is we didn't, and -!"

"Nico," I said again, softer still.

His hands were waving about frantically as he talked, true to his Italian heritage. He jabbed and stabbed at the air with grandly gesturing fingers. "See, we had done all of the tests only we didn't know what to do with him because the lab still wasn't open, and we were tired because lugging around a dead body all day isn't exactly an easy job, y'know, and so Grover said that we should take a break and we did and then the teacher called and was all, 'Hey, guys, lab's back' so we took the body and made a break for it, but when we got back to the lab the teacher saw that we'd somehow lost half an index finger and if we didn't have all the pieces we'd get twenty points deducted off our grades, and I can't afford to lose twenty points, Perce, and so we were looking frantically for it and, and, and-!"

"Nico," I said quietly, "I am giving you your cadaver's finger back. Then I am going to leave. When I come back, you are not going to be here for _at least_ a day. Okay?"

"O-okay, Percy." He snatched the finger from my hand and dashed out of the room. I heard a dull _thud _from the hallway a moment later, signifying Nico's probably painful collision with the wall. I couldn't really find it in my deep compassionate soul to care at the moment. Yeah, that's right. Feel the love.

* * *

I sighed and ran my hand over my face and through my hair. It had been a long, long day.

The not-really-a-kiss-but-almost with Annabeth certainly hadn't helped it.

I mean, yes, okay, she was a gorgeous girl and she was about to kiss me, which was great and all, don't get me wrong. But she was also a gorgeous girl who was about to kiss me who I barely _knew_. Yeah, sure, we had technically been on a date – we'd had two meals out together, counting Chevy's. But they had both been in a sort of, I don't know, friendly atmosphere. They weren't _really_ dates.

And I knew a little bit about her, sure – her mom was Athena, she was really, really gorgeous, she loved architecture and was double majoring with that and ancient history, she was insanely hot, her favorite color was green-blue, _wow_ she was smokin', she knew and loved Monty Python, she was _awesomely pretty_, she loved to read, she had an amazing body, she had a great (and sometimes sick) sense of humor…did I mention the hotness factor?

I don't think I did.

She had it.

In spades.

But was that really enough to provoke the…things I'd felt? I mean, it was…one of the most intense sensations of my life, just having her in my arms. Almost kissing her was…incredible. And I'd sort-of know her for what? Two days?

There was no way it was real.

No way.

"Whatcha think-in'?"

"Gah!" I sputtered eloquently, batting at Thalia's head from where it hung over mine. She flounced back onto my bed, Indian-style, and stared at me with those damned omniscient blue eyes.

"You looked thoughtful, which is distinctly un-Percy-ish. I'd offer a penny for your thoughts, but since I sort of doubt they're worth that much, I figured I'd just sort of…barge in."

I growled and rubbed at my temples. "I could've sworn I'd had the locks changed."

She shrugged carelessly, her black hair loose and bouncing against her shoulders. "Locks can never keep me out."

I sighed. "Nic forgot to lock it again."

"Ah, so you _do_ have a brain. Congratulations."

"Amazing. Now I'll use my brain power to tell you to _get out_."

"No."

"Please?"

"Why?"

"Because I am thinking _Deep Thoughts_. With capital letters and italics. So shoo."

"No."

"Ple-ease?"

"Mm…no."

"You suck."

"So do vacuums. Is there a point to this tirade?"

"It's not a tirade!"

"Dude, you are so having a tirade."

"Do you even know what a tirade _is_?!"

"Tirade, noun; a prolonged outburst of –"

"Oh shut up."

"No."

"God damn you."

"Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt. Get more inventive with your threats, why don't you."

I sighed and let my head fall back onto my mattress. She petted my hair in silence for a while, and it was somewhat companionable. I guess.

"So," she said after a few quiet moments. "How was tutoring?"

I hummed in the back of my throat. "Okay, I guess. I understand more now than I ever have before, so I'm gonna assume it was a success. We took a break-turned-dinner at Chevy's, and I drove her to her dorm. Then I came here."

"And that's all?"

"Yes," I huffed, annoyed.

"WEE-OO."

I jumped at the loud noise, but Thalia held me down with her fingers, still twined in my hair.

"Wow," she said drily. "My bullshit meter's alarm is really something, huh?"

I groaned. "Thalia-a-a…"

"As your cousin and Annabeth's friend, it is my god-given right to know the degree of sexual molestation you two got up to."

I blushed to the roots of my hair. "What – there – nothing – we didn't _do_ anything!"

"And more's the pity," she sighed. I could feel her braiding my hair. "Come on, this morning I could practically _see_ the UST radiating off you two."

"UST?"

"Unresolved Sexual Tension. Very deadly disease. The most susceptible are retarded surfers and ultra-smart hot architectural chicks."

"Har-de-har-har. My sides are aching, I'm laughing so hard."

"So what happened?"

I blew some air out of my nose. "We almost kissed in the parking lot by her dorm."

"Almost? _Almost?_"

"Some dude in a car drove by and we both sort of…freaked. She went inside, I came home."

Thalia huffed behind me. "Well. I'm just going to have to remedy this situation."

"No."

"Yes."

"No."

"Yes."

"Excuse me…"

We both turned to find Bianca di Angelo standing in the doorway, hands on hips and eyebrow cocked, watching up with a smile on her face.

"If you two are quite done," she said, her grin audible, "Thalia has a visitor waiting in the lobby."

"Oh, that'll be Luke," she said, rising from my bed. I blinked up at her in astonishment.

"Luke – as in the Luke that got you insanely drunk in a bar on the other side of town because he screwed a bartender in a bathroom stall Luke?"

She rolled her eyes at me. "Look, we've talked about it, and…"

"And he's emotionally manipulated you again," I groaned. "Look, Thalia, he's not worth it. You _know _that he's just going to hurt you again."

Bianca was gone now; the hallway was deserted as Thalia exited. I followed, persisting in my argument. "Every single time you get together with him, he winds up hurting you. Badly, sometimes. Never physically, which is good, but…mentally? He scars you, Thalia."

She gave a choked little laugh, shaking her head and looking away from me, down the hall. "You think I don't _know_? You think I don't _see_ the scars, or _feel _it when he cuts me?"

"Then why do you stay?!" I cried, throwing my arms out in exasperation. "There are _thousands_ of other guys who could be anything for you, _thousands_ who - !"

"But they're not _him!_" she cried softly, turning abruptly to face me. "I _know_ that there are other guys who would treat me ten thousand times better. I _know_ that they're out there, and that I deserve better than Luke. But knowing it doesn't matter, because it doesn't change the fact that at the end of the day, those thousands of guys _aren't Luke_ – and it's _Luke_ I want. Maybe I don't like everything he does, or how he treats me sometimes. But there are other times, Percy, when – when he's the kindest, sweetest guy. When he has the best sense of humor, or the most amazing smile."

She gave the little sob-laugh again, shaking her head and smiling a small, sad smile. "I know that you only see the bad side of Luke, but that's only because you're the one who picks up the pieces I lose when he breaks me. When he doesn't – he's amazing, Percy."

I stared at her. "You _love_ him," I said quietly.

She snorted softly and nodded, still with that smile. "Yeah. Stupid, right?"

She looked up at me with those eyes, and I saw the shadow of hurt that hung behind them like an opaque wall that shielded her from everything. I saw the need she felt to be sure of something – like she was sure of Luke.

I pulled her into a hug, and her hands tightened on the back of my shirt. She buried her face in my shoulder for a minute, and then pulled back with a bright smile set firmly in place. "Well, I shouldn't keep him waiting. See ya, Perce!"

I waved goodbye as she skipped down the hallway, not lowering my hand until long after she was gone down the staircase. I sighed and reached down to scoop up the kitten that had meandered into the hallway. I stood in the hall for a while after that, petting a dozing kitten and watching the ghost of my broken cousin as she ran towards the man who broke her.

The man she loved.

I still couldn't understand.

* * *

A/N

Hm.

Heavy stuff there.

Percy will get it eventually, I'm sure.

Next chapter: Grover and Annabeth return, along with a Luke appearance and a brief sighting of Clarisse. :) See y'all soon!

- dnrl


	6. Chapter 6

...

_Hi there_. :D

So yeah. A quicker update than last time, eh? I didn't keep you waiting too long, right? _Oh god please don't kill me._

Ahem. Sorry it took longer than expected; I wrote and wrote and wrote, and I wasn't happy, so I edited and edited and edited and…got a shiny new program on my computer which completely monopolized my attention for a few days (weeks) _but_ I've got a chapter and you should be happy. D: _I'm_ not happy, but my friend-editor told me to stop whining about my writing and post before my reviewers eat me alive.

I don't taste good. Just…for future consideration. I really, really don't.

And so, without further ado…

**

* * *

It Takes Two**

_By: dnrl  
_

* * *

Percy is a suffering student of marine biology at NYU. Against his wishes, his cousin signs him up for a tutor, and he resigns himself to endless boredom...but the tutor he gets definitely isn't what he was expecting. Percabeth, AU

* * *

Chapter Six: Down To The River

* * *

I finished the final page of my marine biology IV exam study guide and heaved a sigh of relief as I slumped back in the library chair. (As a side note, have you ever noticed how comfortable they are? They shouldn't make them that comfortable. People are liable to fall asleep, and they don't like people sleeping in here. I know. Trust me.) Not including Statistics, I felt relatively confident about my other exams. Marine Bio IV was first, followed by Genetics, with Organic Chemistry being my last exam before Statistics. I had finished my study guides, and I was pretty confident that, while I wasn't going to be best in class, I was going to pass. C was my comfort range.

"Percy, I think I'm going to die."

I tried not to smile as I looked over at my best friend, who sat with his furry head buried in a stack of looseleaf covered in notes, doodles, and the odd scribble here and there. "C'mon, Grover. It's not that bad."

He scoffed incredulously, looking up at me with disbelieving eyes. "Not that bad," he repeated dully.

"Yeah," I encouraged brightly. "I mean, you won't fail Biology. That's gotta count for something."

He groaned and let his forehead thunk against the desk again. "Thanks a lot."

"I try, man. I try." I tore up a piece of doodled-on, note-less looseleaf and occupied myself trying to make miniature airplanes. Annabeth was supposed to meet me here in half an hour, and I had over-estimated the time I'd need to finish Marine Bio. I experimentally flicked an airplane at Grover. It took a nosedive and buried itself in his mass of hair. He brushed it off irritably as he stretched.

"Why am I doing this again?"

"Doing what?" I asked, folding another airplane.

"This. This…_college_ thing."

"…money? Job? Good life standard?"

"Seriously? Come on, man, you know me. I'd be happy in the woods with no electricity or plumbing."

"No enchiladas."

"I'd make my own."

"You'd need to buy supplies."

"I'd grow them."

"Where would you get the seeds or the tools to make it?"

"…I'd buy them."

"With what?"

"…the barter system."

I shot him a look.

"Okay, fine, I'd buy them with money, only I wouldn't have any money because in order to have money I would need a job, and in order to have a job I need a place of residence, and in order to have a place of residence I have to go to school so that I can make money in a good job. Shut up."

"You love me."

"Like a chalkboard loves a nail."

I rolled my eyes and flicked another plane at him. He hissed in irritation. "God, you are so ADHD."

"Hey, I took my meds this morning. I'm mellow."

"Uh-huh."

My line of witty banter was lost to the world due to a timely interruption from Nico. He was barreling towards us at an insane speed, his hair flying back from his face, his eyelids peeled back, his clothes flattened to his body. He caught himself on the edge of the table, whipped himself around, and dropped to the ground. He shifted over so that he was behind my chair, and hissed up at me, "Act natural, retard! I'm not here!"

"Whatever you say," I muttered, twirling my finger around my ear with a significant look at Grover, who shrugged.

"He's _your_ cousin," he pointed out.

"Yeah, yeah," I said. I looked back in the direction he had come blasting in from and saw the reason for said blasting. "Good reason," I sighed to myself. Grover raised an eyebrow, and I nodded my head towards the girl now marching towards us with a glint in her eyes. Grover put his head in his hands.

The brown-haired girl reached our table and slammed her hands down hard enough to make the reference books jump and several sheets of paper fall to the floor. "Where is he?"

"I kinda need more than that," I replied with an ease I _definitely_ didn't feel.

"Yeah. Define 'is,'" Grover said nervously, chewing on a sheet of notes. It was a nervous habit from when he was a kid – he was a big paper eater, for reasons I never understood.

Clarisse ignored him (lucky) and instead focused her attentions on me (unlucky). "You know who I'm talking about. He was just here."

"First off, no, I don't. Second off, how can you know? Do you smell his fear or something?"

She deigned to glare at me for a minute. I basked in the glow of her hate. "No. I saw him."

"I see lots of things," Grover piped up. He was nibbling around the edges of the looseleaf. Once again, Clarisse ignored him in favor of drilling me.

"Your retarded cousin. Nicky or whatever his name is."

"Nico?" I asked, contorting my face into what I hoped was a correctly puzzled expression. "I haven't seen him since yesterday."

"Don't give me that bullshit," she said, slamming her fists on the table again.

"My mom always told me to be quiet in libraries," Grover stuck in. The paper wasn't looking so good. Once again, he was ignored.

"Look, I saw him outside. He saw me and ran in here. I followed him. To you. You're his cousin. You're probably hiding him because of some family bond or whatever."

I actually laughed at that. "Clearly, you have no idea what my family's like."

"What_ever_!" she said, stamping her foot in frustration. (Girls actually do that?) "He's here. I know he is." Mentally, I tacked on _I can smell him_ to the end of that sentence. Look, it just _fit_.

"No, you don't know, because you're wrong. He's not here."

She narrowed her eyes at me, and was getting ready to yell at me again, when a stern-looking woman with a bun and spiky glasses put her hand on Clarisse's shoulder. I'd never been so glad to see a librarian in my life.

"If you're going to raise a ruckus, I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

Clarisse sneered. "Yeah, cause asking me will get you so far in life. I'm not leaving until I have what I came for."

I expected the librarian to call the Book Police or whatever libraries had in way of security, but she stood her ground. "Unless what you came for was a book, it's not here, so you should leave."

Clarisse ignored her, turning back to me. "Look, Princess, I know that that piece of Italian garbage is hiding around here somewhere. So tell me where he is, and I won't break your knuckles."

"Did you know that it's possible to dislocate a palm?" Grover had a thing with talking when he was nervous, and the paper was almost gone now. Clarisse shot him a glare, but didn't actually say anything. She couldn't, because as she opened her mouth, the librarian grabbed her by the ear and yanked. The words that were about to emerge instead came out as a wail.

"What are you doing, you crazy - ?!"

The librarian began to take firm, brisk strides in the direction of the door, towing a yelling Clarisse behind her. She pulled her out of the building and shut the door in her face. She turned, nodded once at us, and walked off.

"That is one hard-ass librarian," said Nico from where he was crouched beside my chair. He straightened to up and flopped bonelessly into the chair beside mine. "Grover, man, I don't think that eating ink-covered paper is good for you."

"Dude, why did you run for me? You had to realize she would see me and connect the dots. She's angry, not stupid."

He laughed sheepishly. "There wasn't really a thought process. It was more, 'Scary girl wants to rip my berries off, let's haul some ass, oh look Percy will save me' than anything else. Honest." He picked up the mini-airplane I had abandoned during my fight with Clarisse and flicked it at Grover.

"Will you quit with those things?!" He brushed it out of his hair. "Clarisse scares me."

"I think we got that," I said with a grin. "Dislocating a palm?"

"It's possible!" he defended, toying with a pen. "My mom did it to my dad when they first met."

"How…sweet?" Nico asked with trepidation. Shaking his head, he stood. "Well, I gotta go. I'm late for a mandatory study session. Talk to you guys later." With a wave and a quick step, the library shelves enveloped him.

"I gotta go, myself," Grover said, rising to his feet and stuffing papers and books into his messenger bag. "I have a meeting with my guidance counselor. Something about confirming my career path."

"We graduate in, like, less than a month. Isn't it a bit late for that?"

"Apparently not," he sighed. "Say hi to Annabeth for me."

"Sure thing, G-man."

"See ya."

And so I was left alone with my paper airplanes and my Statistics notes.

* * *

"I think we got a little bit off topic, Percy."

"Hey, it wasn't just me that wanted to stop talking about Statistics."

"You're getting better! You actually answered more than a fourth of the questions correctly this time! Granted, you could've answered more if you hadn't started spelling out words with the multiple choice answers halfway through, but still."

"Like you've never done it."

"Once, in my sophomore year in high school, on a Spanish exam."

"Ha!"

"Shut up."

"No."

"Fine."

"Whatever."

"God."

"Ugh."

"Jeeze."

"Where does jeeze even come from?"

"…Jesus? I don't know."

"Wha-at? You _don't know_ _everything_? Nothing makes sense anymore!"

Annabeth laughed out loud at that before punching my softly on the shoulder. "God, I think you surf too much. Your head is filled with water."

"Thalia used to say that it was filled with seaweed," I said. "Our family used to go to a little place down in the Florida Keys for the summer, and there was seaweed everywhere. Thalia told me that seaweed seeds had floated into my head and planted themselves on my brain."

"So your head is full of seaweed?"

"Yup. I'm a seaweed brain," I confirmed cheerfully, shooting her a grin. "Also known as the polar opposite of Annabeth Chase, eternal girl of wisdom."

"Wise girl," she deadpanned, raising an eyebrow. I smiled.

"Yes," I declared decisively. "From this day forth, you shall be known to all – well, to me – as Annabeth Wise Girl Chase, and I will address you as such."

"Whatever, _Seaweed Brain_."

I stuck my tongue out at her and refrained from comment. She laughed at me. "I'm going to look up some more review questions. Go over the study guide," she commanded as she pulled a heavy textbook towards her.

"Yes sah," I said, giving a mock salute. She rolled her eyes, but she was smiling.

I paid attention to the page in front of me for all of two seconds before my thoughts wandered to the girl sitting next to me. Neither of us had mentioned the almost-kiss from two nights ago, and there hadn't been any awkwardness tinting our usual banter like I had expected. It was just like it had been before, and I was okay with that. I'd never been good with girls or relationships in general; it's like they're a different species rather than a different gender. I just suck at communicating with them. Thalia told me once that I was like a caveman and a girl was like someone with an English Masters degree; I just liked to point and grunt, and I didn't understand when words were involved.

She had a valid point.

So it wasn't entirely out of pity for Grover that I had joined up with the blind date thing. I thought that maybe, _maybe_, Fate would be nice for once and throw me somebody who I could talk to, who I could laugh with like I did with my friends, and who I could, I don't know, have a relationship with. And somehow, it had happened. Against all odds, I had found a girl who didn't completely throw me off guard with everything she said, who didn't freak me out, who talked with me and understood me and quoted Monty Python. A girl that I felt this _connection_ with.

It was more than a little scary, and I had to wonder: where was the catch?

Nothing this good came for free. Nothing this good came without a price.

Where was the tag on this?

* * *

"Hey, Jackson!"

I turned, saw who called me, grimaced, and turned back around. Before I could start walking, a hand was on my shoulder, pulling me back.

"What, Castellan?" I asked, pulling my shoulder out of his grasp and turning to face him.

He dug in his bag for something and pulled out a small purple box tied with a white ribbon. "I'm in classes all day, and you and Thalia have Statistics together in an hour, right? Could you please pass that along to her?"

"What is it?" I asked, curious despite myself. I shook the box and he winced.

"Be careful!" he said. "Tomorrow's the day we first met, eleven years ago. We started a tradition a while back – a clue hunt. I give her a clue, and she traces it to the next clue, which gives her the third clue, and so on, until she figures out what we're doing for the day. That's the first clue, and it's breakable. Please be careful?"

"God, you guys are so corny." I gave him a look. I tried to keep my dislike out of it, but apparently I wasn't successful.

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "Look, okay, I understand. I'm an asshole who's using your cousin. I get that that's what you think. It's not what's right, and it's not anywhere close to the truth, but nothing that _I_ say is going to change your mind, and nothing that _Thalia_ says is going to do anything either, so I'm not going to waste my breath. I've told you before and I'll tell you again: I love Thalia. I do. And no matter how much you judge me, in the end, I'll still love her. I always have. I always will." He tapped the box gently. "Thanks for bringing it to her. I'll see you around."

He turned into the flow of traffic in the hallway and vanished, one fish among a school.

* * *

**A/N**

So…yeah. Not too short…not too long…right? Right. Luke's characterization is what's irking me the most, but this is the best Luke I could write at the moment, or for the past month or so. So feh.

Working on _Into the Ocean_; it's in editing stage. And the idea for _Fall Into The Sky_ won't be verbalized yet, idiotic thing that it is. We'll see.

Thanks for reading. Updates (hopefully) sooner rather than later.


	7. Chapter 7

A/N

I understand that my updating has been…sporadic, to be generous. The fact is, I have a fairly busy life. I spent fourteen hour days at school for most of the year, and we aren't allowed on the internet for fun, only for class, and it's a strict monitoring system. (I know. My dad helped design it.) During the weekends, I take extra music classes, unwind, spend time with friends, and do homework. I write fanfictions in the margins of my notebooks while I'm supposed to be paying attention, and I transcribe when I can, but the fact is, I can't do it all that often. I aim to please, but I can't update as often as I would like to or as often as you guys would like me to. I know that my excuses may seem pathetic or you don't really care or _whatever_, but…it's annoying.

Not you people who review when I update and say, "I wish that you'd updated sooner, but I'm so happy this is here!" You guys are cool, awesome. It motivates me to write more, really it does, and it puts me in that "mood" more quickly. But it's the people who say, "Unless you update, I'm not going to read." _That's_ what aggravates me. If you want quick updates, go find someone who's known for being a _prolific_ writer. I'm _not_, as anyone would know if they glanced through the reviews for any of my stories for about three seconds. I didn't mean to get preachy, and I'm not angry at the people themselves; anger is really too strong a word. I'm more…ticked than anything. Annoyed, a bit.

_Okay_. Story time. Quality might be a little worse than the norm, but I'm shooting for longer this chapter.

**

* * *

It Takes Two**

_By: dnrl  
_

* * *

Percy is a suffering student of marine biology at NYU. Against his wishes, his cousin signs him up for a tutor, and he resigns himself to endless boredom...but the tutor he gets definitely isn't what he was expecting. Percabeth, AU

* * *

Chapter Seven: Falling In Love At A Coffeeshop

* * *

I swung into my desk five minutes before the start of Stats and tossed Thalia the package. She fumbled it and almost dropped it before netting it safely in the cage of her hands. She shot me a glare and tugged the ribbon, looping it around her ponytail absently before opening the purple box. She bit her lip and giggled as she pulled out a small crystal pyramid hanging on a small necklace.

"Who the hell gives somebody a pyramid necklace? 'Oh, I hope whenever you look at it, you think about mummies!'" I grumbled, rummaging in my bag for the note outline Annabeth and I had compiled. Professor Stein had sent in a counselor who informed us that the professor was attending a seminar in Norway and would return for the examination. Most of the people had cleared out, but I figured that as long as I was in the classroom I'd attempt to absorb some of the smart Stats-vibes and try to get some work done.

"Shut up, Percy," Thalia said, rolling her eyes at me. "It's not just a glass pyramid. It's a clue."

"You're going to Egypt?"

She rolled her eyes. "The pyramids in Egypt aren't _glass_, Percy. The one outside the Louvre is, though."

"So…you're…going to France?"

"No." She tsked her tongue at me as she shoved her notes into her mesh backpack and clasped the necklace around her neck. "It means that I need to go look up the history of the glass pyramid outside the Louvre and I'll find my next clue. Idiot."

"I'll take that as an affectionate pet name."

"Sure, that's _exactly_ what it is." She skipped down the classroom steps and shot me a quick salute. "Study hard, Perce."

"Yeah," I muttered. "Right."

Half an hour later, I was a quarter of the way through the study guide and in no way smarter for it. I was guessing wildly and I knew it, but I was determined to finish. Maybe.

My phone buzzed in my pocket, telling me I had a text message. I pulled it out, eager to put off anything Statistics for a few minutes. It was Annabeth.

"_Seaweed Brain – since it's been about an hour since we stopped, and since you were supposed to be studying for the last hour, and since I know your attention span, I figured I would tell you: stop procrastinating. Now. You know you're doing it. :P Study. Go. – Wise Girl."_

I sighed and texted back:

"_I really think that you're psychic. Really._"

I put the phone down on the desk, picked up a pencil, and started reading the questions again. I had done three when my phone buzzed again. I tapped the "Okay" button and the message came up on screen.

"_Only sometimes. Only sometimes. ;)_"

I gave a soft laugh and tapped the keys. "_Annabeeeeth. I don't get any of this. ;3;"_

I didn't even bother to put the phone down or start on the study guide again; what was the point of pretending I understood what I didn't, or that a study guide would help me? Plus, hey, texting cute girls _way_ overrules doing study guides. Always.

My phone vibrated, and I brought the message up.

"_You do, you just don't like it so you're putting it off. Stop it._"

"_What's my motivation?_" I replied, a smile on my face.

"_Me not kicking your ass_," was her reply, and I could see her face in my mind as she typed it – an eyebrow arched, her mouth in that little smile where the corners of her mouth turned up just a tiny bit.

"_Lol. But really, why should I try? Besides my aunt's fits._"

I got a convincing reply: "_Because we're doing a study review over dinner at 6, and if you miss more than half you're buying my meal too. And I'm ordering expensive. :)"_

I didn't reply. I buried my head in my notes, and in the back of my mind, I knew that she was watching her blank cell phone screen with a satisfied smile on her face.

* * *

After another hour of sitting by myself in my Statistics classroom, reviewing and reviewing and reviewing my notes, I looked at the clock on my phone. The display read _5:30_ and I made a face. I texted Annabeth. "_We still on for tonight?_"

"_Only if you're confident,_" was her reply. I smiled.

"_Oh yeah. Where?_"

"_Atelier in the Ritz on Central Park. See you soon. Bring your wallet and lots of cash._"

"_Uh. Reservations? You need them like a month before to even get a little buzzer thingy._"

"_They don't do the buzzers, SB. *eyeroll* Besides, my stepbrother is on the board. They're required to let in._"

I tried not to be impressed by the prestige of Annabeth's family, really I did, but even with my dad being the rich guy that he was, we didn't have clout _quite_ like that. "_SB?_"

"_Seaweed Brain. Dur. Get moving, you're going to be late. See you soon, right? ;)"_

I glanced at the clock again. _5:40_. Shoot.

I threw my books into my bag, stuffed my phone in my pockets, and dashed down the stairs and out of the classroom. I almost knocked down some poor janitor, overturned a plastic garbage can outside the building, and broke apart some couple eating each other's faces in my rush to get to my car. I slid into the driver's seat, revved the engine, and sped away to the dorm.

I'd have to catch a taxi downtown to the Ritz, and it was in the latter end of rush hour. Plus I had to change into something nicer than jeans, and god only knew how long it would take me to find something nice enough for the Ritz. I hadn't worn a suit in…since my grandma's birthday last year. I thought it was still in my dorm. Somewhere.

I slid into my parking spot, slammed the door shut, and dashed up to my room. Nico looked up from where he was splayed across his bed, petting Athena and talking to Bianca, who sat on my bed. "Well don't we look frantic," he said.

"I am," I panted, diving for my bed and yanking my old suitcase out from under it. I flipped it open and groaned. "Now I remember where I put all the clothes I don't have anywhere else for."

Bianca raised an eyebrow at the mass of clothing in the suitcase. "Anything in particular you're looking for?"

"Suit."

"Suit?" Nico asked, rolling onto his stomach. Athena made a noise of protest and wiggled away from him in a cat maneuver. "Why do you need a suit?"

"Dinner with Annabeth."

"Percy has a date!" Bianca cheered excitedly, clambering off my bed to help me sort through the clothes.

"It's not a date," I huffed, throwing t-shirts and odd socks over my shoulder as I searched. "It's a tutoring thing."

"In a _suit_," giggled Bianca. "Oh, nice Batman boxers!"

Flushing, I snatched them away and stuffed them back under the bed. "Yes, because the Ritz likes their guests in formal attire!"

"Dude, why are you going to the Ritz?"

"Tutoring thing!" I said, frustrated. The suitcase was empty, there was no suit, and it was…shit. 5:45.

Bianca grabbed my wrist. "Come on."

"Where are we going?" I asked as she dragged me up and back out the door.

"You think that I worked here since graduation and _didn't_ earn a few favors?" she asked, shooting me a glance. She stopped at the end of the hall and slammed her fist on the door. "Open up, Connor!"

"Why?" came the muffled answer.

"Because it's time to pay the piper. You owe me, Stoll."

An odd groan-growl issued from behind the door, and a few minutes later it swung open to reveal a messy-haired teen with bloodshot eyes. "I've gone three days without sleeping. What do you want?"

"Suit. You have one. Give me."

"But – "

"Now."

"Fine, whatever. Wait here."

I looked at Bianca in awe. "I wish Nico had your balls."

She laughed. "So does he, believe me."

Connor appeared again, a slightly rumpled suit on a hangar. He shoved it at Bianca and the slammed the door in our faces. She shoved it at _me_ and then pushed me down the hall. "Go change so I can fix you! Go!"

I finished dressing, stuffing my shirt into the waistband of the trousers as I stepped out to meet Bianca. She took one look at me, rolled her eyes, and went to work. First went the tie, tossed in Nico's general direction. Then the top button was undone, the belt was taken away, and the shirt was pulled loose. She reached up and rumpled my hair. Stepping back, she surveyed me with a frown. "If you'd just been home sooner…but you're fine. Go. Now. You have ten minutes. Run, Percy! Run!"

Forrest Gump flashing through my head, I turned on my heels and dashed down the hall, down the stairs, and out to find my taxi.

* * *

I tossed the driver a twenty plus the fare and slid out the door. I glanced down at my phone. 5:59. I must have gotten the fastest cabbie in all of New York, and I'd never been more grateful. I slipped in through the revolving door and cast my glance around the plush lobby. Would she have gone in without me…?

"There you are!"

She looked more stunning than she had the night that we had met, wearing an off-the-shoulder knee-length dress and carrying herself like an army general or a queen – I couldn't decide which. The laptop case that hung from one bared shoulder sort of clashed with the outfit, but it served to remind me that, as I'd vehemently told Bianca, this _wasn't_ a date. Annabeth was my tutor. Nothing more.

"What, did you think I'd forgotten?"

"I thought you'd be late," she replied honestly, smiling. "Come on, Richard has a table waiting for us."

"Richard? Your stepbrother?"

"No, Richard the concierge. My stepbrother is Matthew."

Richard the Concierge showed us to our table – we were sitting next to the window, overlooking the street – and announced that our server would be by shortly. He vanished, and left Annabeth and I alone.

She was staring out the window, lost in thought, and I couldn't help but watch her. I couldn't do anything _but_ watch her. Her hair was twisted up in a clip, with two golden springs framing her face. Curls frizzed up behind her ears, corkscrewing out behind her wind chime earrings. The imperfection in her hair was fascinating like nothing else at that moment, because it was _her hair_. Her eyes were lost in space, and her face was caught in the lamplight, and right then, it was like nothing else was real.

Then the moment was gone as she blinked back to earth and smiled at me. "We can save Statistics until desert, right? I don't really…feel like it right now."

"Oh yeah, like I'm gonna be eager to do it now," I snorted. She laughed.

"Thought so." She surveyed her menu with a smile on her lips. "Hmm, what shall I have today? The steak and lobster in sauvignon blanc sounds tasty…"

"It should be, for ninety eight dollars," I teased. She grinned at me.

"I sure hope you studied," she sang happily.

* * *

Our forks warred over the last piece of my steak.

"I shall never let you have the last remnant of the carcass of my dear bovine friend!" I said. "What ho, sword, battle on!"

"Nay, good sir, this battle belongs to me and mine!" she chimed in, her eyes shining with held in laughter. "Your bovine friend shall meet his third and final death upon my teeth!"

Our server cleared his throat, a tad nervously. Annabeth blushed and immediately pulled her fork back. I stabbed the piece of steak with my fork and allowed the server to remove the plate. "We'll have the desert menu," I said. He nodded and returned to the kitchen.

Annabeth leaned forward on her elbows and opened her mouth to say something. Without letting myself think, I took the steak from my fork and placed it in her mouth.

Her lips brushed the ends of my fingers, caught on the pads of my fingertips, and then slid away. I tried to ignore the thudding of my heart and concentrated on the dancing laughter in her eyes as she chewed and swallowed the last piece of my filet. "Was it a good death?" I asked, when I felt that I could trust my voice again.

"Oh yes," she said with a laugh. "He died well, sir. Very well, and for a worthy cause."

"Then I may rest, and so may his soul," I declared. "Coffee, black, two sugars," I ordered as the server approached with the menus.

"I'll have the same," Annabeth told him as he handed us the menus.

"Of course, sir and m'am. I'll be back with your coffees in just a moment."

"They have cheesecake!"I said. She raised an eyebrow.

"You…like cheesecake," she said.

I grinned. "Yeah. My mom can make the best New York cheesecake…I never quite learned how. It was always kind of…_our_ desert. We'd make it together – well, I'd mix, and she'd do the rest. And then we would eat cheesecake for desert for a week. Sometimes we had it was fruit, sometimes with chocolate…depending on what we felt like." I sighed. "We don't do that much. The last time was the day before I came back after Christmas break."

Her eyes were soft. "You really love your mom," she observed with a gentle smile.

"Yeah," I agreed. "I do." My eyes slid down and alighted on the black laptop case. I grimaced. "I guess we have to do that now, huh."

She followed my eyes and for a moment, there was a grimace on her face too. "I forgot about that," she confessed with a small laugh. She looked back at me. "How about we go to a Starbucks after this and review it there?"

I shot her a smile. "Fine by me. But who pays?"

She laughed. "Nobody. Matthew said it's on the house."

I shook my head and gave her a mock glare. "Thanks for telling me," I grumbled.

"Aw, did I worry you? Did you not study hard enough?" she teased. I leaned forward and tweaked her nose.

"I was just worried that _you_ wouldn't have enough money to pay your half, since you're _so_ unconfident in my abilities to absorb Statistics." She swatted my hand away, but when my hand fell to the table hers fell on top of it.

We stared at our hands for a minute, neither of us moving or making eye contact with the other. Slowly, slowly, her fingers curled around mine, and I let my fingers curl around hers. Without making any mention of our hands, or looking down to where they lay, joined, on the table, we continued our light banter, and every now and then her hand would squeeze on mine, as if to say, _Is this okay_? I always squeezed back.

_Yes_.

* * *

We held hands in the taxi all the way to the Starbucks. We got a few odd looks – after all, we were in semi-formal attire in a Starbucks at eight thirty at night – but apparently the employees had seen stranger, and the world went on. We stayed there, drinking coffee and biting on scones and studying, until nearly twelve. Annabeth yawned first, and I pounced on it.

"We should pack up, we've been at it for hours. You're exhausted."

She flushed, and I raised an eyebrow.

"You have a dirty, dirty mind, Miss Chase."

She gave a little laugh. "You have no idea," she said, and it sounded (or I thought) like a promise. I swallowed, my throat suddenly very dry.

"Percy," she said after a moment of silence, "I didn't want that meal at the Ritz to be a study session."

It took a minute for her words to really sink in – and then another for the meaning to penetrate. Hey, I told you I was slow. When they did, it was still a few more breaths before I could act.

When I was able to control my own body again, I leaned across the table between us and took her chin in my hand. I waited until her large grey eyes, so full of light, looked at me, and I said, "I didn't, either."

I heard her swallow, felt her breath coming just a little bit quicker. I leaned up on my elbows, and her head tilted opposite of mine. I felt her forehead press against mine, and I could taste her breath on my lips. We stayed there, frozen, for what felt like both an eternity and nothing at all. And then, with the force of a wave breaking, I brought my lips to hers.

My hand slid from her chin to her neck, and the other tangled in her blonde curls. I felt her fingers in my hair, lightly and then firmer, and all I could think of was that she tasted like cheesecake and chocolate and caramel and underneath it all there was something different and primal that tasted _right_.

We broke for air after what felt like only a few seconds, panting. Her eyes were locked onto mine, and her fingers were locked in my air, and my mind was screaming, _Never let her go_.

She smiled at me then, slowly and sweetly, and she was so beautiful in the light of the cheap Starbucks lamp even though her hair was messed up and half down and her dress was inching up her shoulders that I kissed her again.

And again.

And again.

And I had never been so happy.

* * *

A/N

Okay. Well, I hope you shippers are satisfied with this, because next chapter the _drama_ starts. Sort of. :I


	8. Chapter 8

A/N

Hi! Hi there!

Sorry about the long gap between updates; between a new school, new clubs, and my AP classes, I literally only get on the computer for homework anymore. Like, I hardly check my email, and I never get on instant messengers. (Just ask my online friends…sorry, y'all! D:) Anyway, now it's Spring Break, and since I'm confined to bed (wisdom teeth removal, urgh), I finally have enough spare time to write down the newest chapter for you patient guys and dolls. :D Thank you so much for your willingness to put up with my absence—and to _pandaskis_, your chapter is almost finished. I'll be sending it back either late today or early tomorrow. Sorry about the delay. Now—onto the chapter!

* * *

**It Takes Two**

_By: dnrl

* * *

_

Percy is a suffering student of marine biology at NYU. Against his wishes, his cousin signs him up for a tutor, and he resigns himself to endless boredom...but the tutor he gets definitely isn't what he was expecting. Percabeth, AU

* * *

Chapter Eight: J'ai Passé Devant Ta Porte

* * *

I woke up alone in my dorm room. My eyes were crusted shut, the first sign that I'd been up way past my bedtime the night before, and when I finally managed to pry my lids apart, I immediately squeezed them shut again as I was overwhelmed with too-bright afternoon sunshine. Moaning, I rolled onto my stomach and leaned off the side of my bed to snatch at the alarm clock on my floor. 2:30. 2:30 P.M.? Jesus. How late had I stayed up last night, anyway?

I let myself slide bonelessly to the floor, rubbing at my eyes with my wrists. A soft pressure on my knee brought me back to some sort of consciousness, and I looked down to see Athena attempting to propel herself onto my knee. Snorting, I reached down and lifted her up as I stood, cradling her in the crook of my arm as I stumbled over to the window and pulled down the shade, blocking out the atrocious afternoon light. Yawning, I dropped her carefully onto Nico's pillow and rooted around the floor for a few minutes, searching for a clean shirt and some pants. After discovering a Green Lantern shirt that was free of stains and smelled mostly clean and some jeans that only had one suspicious-looking stain the color of barbecue sauce, I tugged the bigger knots out of my hair, slipped on some flip-flops, and grabbed my messenger bag. I had another tutoring session with Annabeth at five—although something in my stomach told me that _studying_ was going to be the last thing on our minds—and I wasn't going in there unprepared. Or without coffee.

I literally ran into Nico as I traipsed down the stairs. He came barreling into me at some ridiculous speed, knocking my flat on my back. He went flying into the wall of the staircase, and I winced at the _crack_ his head made as it collided with the wall. He brushed it off easily enough (I guess years of familial abuse sort of got him used to head wounds), and waved jauntily at me from his position on the floor. "About time you woke up, Sleeping Beauty," he grumbled, hauling himself up with the help of the railing. "I thought you were in a coma or something. I was thinking about throwing some water on you."

"Thanks for caring," I replied, taking his extended hand and letting him pull me to my feet. "Always good to know you've got my back in a dire medical situation. What's the rush, by the way?" I asked as I stooped to grab my bag.

"Huh? Oh, I've got a coffee date with this adorable chick in my Botany class. Figured I might actually want to put on something other than my pajama pants."

"Holy crap, stop the presses. Nico's getting dressed for a girl. Color me impressed," I teased as I started down the stairs again.

"Shut up, you. You have no room to talk, what with getting home at two in the morning," he replied, snorting as he took off in the opposite direction.

"Yeah, yeah," I shouted back at him as I entered the lobby. I waved good morning (afternoon?) to the doorman, and jogged out to my car. My eyes flickered to the backseat, and my brain was suddenly deluged with images—Annabeth, giggling and twining her fingers in my hair between kisses, me finding out she was ticklish on her collarbones, that sound she made when I kissed just behind her ear…

"It's way too early in the day for this," I grumbled to myself, shaking my head to clear it of any residual images and starting the car. I drove like a maniac towards the nearest local coffee place, blaring whatever rock song was on the radio and generally ignoring the middle fingers aimed my way. I was soaring—life was perfect. I had a girl who wanted to be my girlfriend (who _was_ my girlfriend, my mind told me, who _totally made out with me in the backseat of my car_, what?!), it was a gorgeous day, I was doing much better than I thought I could ever do in statistics, Nico had a date, and Thalia and Luke had, as far as I knew, avoided any anniversary drama. I swerved into an empty parking spot near the door of the coffee shop and practically danced in. Still on top of the world, it took me a minute to notice Thalia sitting at a table in the corner.

"Hey, you! With the face!" she called, and I looked over and grinned.

"Hey!" I responded, cheer infusing my voice. Her eyebrows shot up to her hairline.

"Whoa, somebody's happy. Had a good…_tutoring session_, huh?"

"Best one ever," I confirmed, leaning against the table and grinning down at her. "So what's up with you? Figure out your glass pyramid clue yet?"

"Yeah, I got that one easily enough." She twirled her coffee cup absentmindedly between her hands as she spoke. "I got all the way to the ceremonial Japanese tea house, and I'm waiting for them to open so I can go visit and find the next clue. It should be in their oldest tea set."

I blinked, puzzled. "How did you get ceremonial Japanese tea houses out of a small glass pyramid in France?"

She rolled her eyes. "Luke loves knowing the history of things, especially who built them. The guy that build the glass pyramid entrance to the Louvre is I.M. Pei, an Asian architect whose second most famous work is the Miho Museum outside of Tokyo, Japan. Luke loves that museum; he's been, like, twenty times, and he always raves about it. It was built to honor ceremonial tea sets that this one woman had, and one of the tea sets has been brought here, to a traditional tea house in New York. I found it, and I think the final clue is in there."

"How…romantic?" I hazarded. She laughed.

"It is, actually. I love Japanese culture, you know that. The more elaborate the better, and their ceremonies are…" She broke off, sighing. "Gorgeous. Absolutely beautiful. They're like works of art, you know?"

"I will take your word for it," I assured her, my grin a hair shy of flippant. Rolling her eyes at me with a smile, she playfully punched my thigh.

"You just have no sense of historical value. Or romanticism."

"Guilty as charged," I agreed with a smile. "Anyway, I need to go fill up on some coffee—I'm exhausted."

"'Studying' tends to do that to people," she mocked. Her phone gave a shrill little beep, and she glanced at the clock. "Aha! It's open now. I'll see you later, Perce!"

"Have fun with your tea, cuz," I replied, waving goodbye and taking her seat as she swooped away. I sighed and carefully attempted not to think about Annabeth as I pulled out my Stats study guide. I needed to pass this exam; I couldn't keep getting distracted by images of bare shoulders, sweet lips, a slender neck, little ankles, a golden curl…_dammit._ I tugged on my hair in a valiant attempt to redirect my attention to the page in front of me. It worked, for a little while at least. Until she walked into the coffee shop.

With Luke.

My world froze.

He had an arm slung around her shoulders, companionably (and no, not like he did with Thalia, it was completely different, my brain assured me hurriedly), and she was leaning into him, laughing at some joke he had apparently told a few minutes before. She looked so happy, so content and perfect—what was going on? Doubt swallowed me whole, and I felt like an idiot.

Then she turned and saw me.

And her face lit up. She broke free of his arm and grabbed his wrist, tugging him over to my table. "Percy!" she laughed, leaning in and brushing her lips across mine. "This is one of my good friends, Luke. Luke, this is—"

"Percy Jackson," Luke supplied, staring at me with an unfathomable expression. "This is the guy you were telling me about?"

"Yes," she replied, brows furrowed. She glanced back and forth between me and Luke. "Is there something going on here that I should know about?" She folded her arms and cocked one hip to the side, a battle stance if I've ever seen one.

"Just a little bad blood is all," I said, not taking my eyes from Luke's face. "Nothing that serious. Unless he plans on leading my cousin on again. She's at that teahouse, you know."

"I know," he replied. "I was just about to head out there myself, you can ask Annabeth. Right?" he asked, turning to her. She nodded.

"Yes, but wait, what's this all about?"

"Nothing important," he replied, his voice forcibly lighter. He gave her a swift one-armed hug, checked his watch, and gave a fake-casual wave. "I'd better go; don't want to be late," he said. "It's an important day."

"Have fun," Annabeth called after him, watching him leave. She turned back to me as the door swung shut after him. "What the hell was that about, Percy?"

"You don't know, then? That he's dating Thalia?"

"What?" she demanded, sinking into the seat opposite from me. I reached for her hand, but she evaded. I pretended not to feel stung as I continued explaining.

"Yeah. This is eleven years to the day since the first time they met—they've been on and off since then. Off mostly because he cheated on her with other girls, because he's insatiable and Thalia doesn't—"

"Want to have sex until she's married, yeah, I know," she finished for me. Her eyes were clouded, distracted. Sad. "I, um. I had no idea. Has he really treated her that badly? Why is she still with him? I don't understand."

I snorted, humorless. "She told me it's because she loves him. And he told me that he loves her. So I guess they have what you'd call a relationship. Sort of. It's a screwed up one, though."

She was silent for a long moment before she buried her face in her arms. I heard a muffled "Shit" breathe through the layers of flesh and fabric, and my heart contracted in fear. "Annabeth?" I asked, quietly. I again went for her hand, and she pulled away. She sat up quickly, and my breath caught in my throat when I saw tears on her cheeks. "Hey, hey, hey," I said, scooting my chair around the table and closer to her. I lowered my voice just enough that is sank beneath the hum of conversation in the shop. "What's wrong? Are you okay?"

She sniffled, running a hand haphazardly through her hair. Little curls stood the wrong way up, lending her a frazzled, overwhelmed air. "I had no idea…no idea that _Thalia_ was…_is_ his girlfriend. Percy, I didn't know," she whispered, her eyes filled with tears and shining. My heart began to sink like a stone.

"Annabeth," I breathed softly, "hey, it's okay. Talk to me, talk it out. You're okay." She looked at the floor, blinking once or twice, and slowly, gently, wrapped her fingers around my thumbs. In response, I closed my fingers around hers.

"I, um. I might have dated Luke, a while back." She drew in a long, shaky breath. "It was a year ago, maybe. He just, just showed up at my door one night, looking handsome and, well, he was dressed up; he said his girlfriend skipped out on his date, and he didn't want to be alone." She stifled a sob, and I squeezed her hands. "We didn't, we didn't _do_ anything," she said hastily, almost tripping over her own words. "Nothing like that, I promise, I just—"

"It's okay," I assured her, desperately trying to squash the hurt in my chest. "It's okay. You're not…not seeing him anymore, are you?"

"No," she replied, more confident, definitive. More like _my_ Annabeth. (My Annabeth? This was getting a little possessive.) "I broke it off. I figured out that he was still seeing his girlfriend, and I told him that I didn't deserve to be second string. Then we were just friends. That's all."

"I know," I replied, smoothing my fingertips over hers. She looked at my face for the first time since the conversation began, and I smiled at her.

The weird thing was, I _did_ know. I trusted Annabeth—trusted that she wouldn't lie to me, trusted that she didn't know that Thalia was the girlfriend, trusted that she broke up with Luke once she figured out that she was the second woman, not the first.

"You're not, um. Not that angry with me, right?" she asked sheepishly, trying for a smile and getting a small one.

"No way," I assured her. "Why would I be angry with you?"

She stared at me, looking utterly nonplussed for a moment, before breaking out into a startled laugh. "You, Percy Jackson," she said, eyes shining, "are one of a kind, you know that?"

"So I've been told," I answered, smiling. "Why do you think so?"

"Percy," she scolded, "what other guy—_what_ other guy—would give a girl in this situation a second chance? Huh? You just found out that I helped your cousin's boyfriend cheat on your cousin, I had a complete mental breakdown over the fact that I possibly hurt one of my very best friends, _and_ I walked in here arm-in-arm with my ex-boyfriend, whom you happen to hate. _Nobody_, and I mean _nobody_, with half a brain would give me a chance to explain myself, much less just accept it."

"Good thing I only have a quarter of a brain, huh?" I teased. She rolled her eyes at me.

"Missing the point, Percy," she sighed.

"I know," I replied. "I just…you're…um. Well. Sorry. I'm not so good with this whole 'talking about feelings' thing. I, um. You're the first girl I've met in…ever, actually, that I can, y'know, talk to. Laugh with. You listen to me. And you don't get impatient when I don't get something, and you explain why you feel the way you do, and it's just…I get that we're moving a little…fast, emotionally. But I…it feels right," I said. "I don't really know how else to say it. It just _works_. I don't want to let that go. And I trust you. Really."

We sat there for a long time, avoiding each other's eyes in silence. After what felt like a million years, she laughed and tugged gently on my hands, pulling one hand free. She curled my hair around her fingers and maneuvered my head until my nose was touching hers. "You," she whispered, "are the best boyfriend ever. _Ever_." And she kissed me.

I floated in a golden haze of bliss for a few moments, content to lay back and bask. Until the door to the coffee shop slammed open and Thalia stormed in, followed closely by a stammering Luke.

"Annabeth," she snarled, slamming her hands down on our table.

* * *

I had only been awake for half an hour, and my day had been effectively shot to hell.

But I got a kiss and a relationship out of it.

So, in my book, it was totally worth it.

* * *

A/N

Um, sorry about the surplus of drama. And the semi-cliffhanger. And the lack of updates. And the crappiness of the chapter itself. D: Wow, I have a lot to apologize for. Anyway, the titles of the chapter is from a Cajun ballad about a man who's in love with a girl and, when passing by her house, sees a light under the door and realizes that she's in love with/loving someone else. I thought it fitting, under the circumstances. :)


	9. Chapter 9

A/N

Well, guys, this is it. This is the last real chapter of _It Takes Two_. There'll be an epilogue with scenes from their later life, but that's all she wrote. There will be a longer author's note at the end of the epilogue, and for now, enjoy.

* * *

**It Takes Two**

_By: dnrl_

* * *

Percy is a suffering student of marine biology at NYU. Against his wishes, his cousin signs him up for a tutor, and he resigns himself to endless boredom...but the tutor he gets definitely isn't what he was expecting. Percabeth, AU

* * *

Chapter Nine: Anything For You

* * *

I stood halfway up before falling back into my seat again. I reached out and grabbed Thalia's wrist. "What the hell?" I demanded, my eyes flickering from her to Annabeth and back.

"Why don't you ask your girlfriend?" Thalia demanded, her lip pulling back into something that could very well be called a snarl. Luke made a noise and moved forward, reaching out to touch Thalia, but as soon as his palm connected with her back she twisted violently and yanked herself back, her wrist torn from my hand.

"Look, she already told me, and you've clearly got the wrong story," I said, frowning. I spread my hands, palms out, placating. "She didn't realize she was helping Luke cheat on you. She ended it, Thalia."

"Then why the hell did she send him a text telling him how much fun their date was two days ago? Apparently they met up, had drinks. You know." She was pale and shaking now, her lips pressed into a taut line when they weren't moving. "And apparently the sleeping together thing didn't stop either."

I could feel rage and nausea warring with each other, a wave of hot bile rising higher and higher. I pressed my eyes closed and focused on breathing for a minute. I spoke to Annabeth without opening my eyes. "You said. You said that you guys didn't—that you weren't—that it was over. That you turned him away."

Her voice shook a little when she answered. "I didn't want to…you. You're just so…sweet, and caring, and you _listen_ when I talk to you and you just…are everything I ever wanted in a guy."

I choked on a laugh—a sob, if I was being brutally honest. "So you _lie _to me about having sex with my cousin's boyfriend?"

"No! No, I didn't—"

"_But you did_." The bile was higher in my throat now, burning me from the inside out, and if I kept my eyes shut I could pretend the burning wetness behind my eyelids was bile too. I opened them anyway and looked at her, only at her. "You _did_, and you did it right to my face, and I can't deal with that. Why the _hell_ would you do that?"

"Because you're _you_—you're so nice and open and—"

I couldn't blink back the wetness anymore. I stood up, my hands shaking against the table. "I'm so tired of being just that nice guy. I'm done, okay? I'm done."

I didn't look back when I walked away.

* * *

I woke up at five the morning of my Statistics exam. The half-gray light was filtering in through the windows. Nico was gone, having finished finals early and already headed to California. He and Thalia had caught an earlier flight together, leaving me alone with my despair. Athena sat at the foot of my bed, watching me with silver eyes. I clicked my tongue softly, beckoning her closer until she padded forward and curled up next to my hip, her tiny head butting against the bone in what I guessed was an attempt at comfort. I absently stroked over her fur fingers scratching behind an ear. She purred.

I sighed and stared at the ceiling, watching the shadows from the tree dance. I should use the unexpected extra time to study, probably—if I failed this test, I wouldn't graduate in four years with my family. My dad would be insanely disappointed. My mom would be disappointed too, but she would be kinder about it, which would probably hurt more. But I couldn't bring myself to get out of bed. It felt like all my weight was centered on my chest, pressing down, a hard pressure that made breathing a challenge, much less moving. It was like my whole being was centered on my sternum, a painful tight sensation that I was almost positive was physical as well as mental. Moving felt like a colossal challenge that I just couldn't find it in me to undertake.

But for all that I tried to find patterns in the shadows, all I could see was Annabeth, and for all that I tried to listen to Nico's sleep noises, she was all I could hear, too. It was like a sick torture: for the last few weeks, all my mind wanted to do was dream about her, about her smile and her laugh and all her little quirks and habits. But now, where my mind wanted to think about the positive, all it wound up doing was replaying yesterday's catastrophe over and over in hi-def 3D. All I could think about was the way the tears were swelling in her eyes, the dull red rising in her cheeks, and the way she couldn't defend her lies.

Suddenly I couldn't bear to sit still anymore. I scooped up Athena and threw the covers to the side, swinging my legs over the side. I set her down next to me and she cuddled up to my hip again. I dropped my head into my hands, tugging at my curls until my scalp tingled. She yawned.

I fumbled my way through a quick shower and dressed in whatever I found on my floor that didn't smell too foul. I swung my bag over my shoulder, grabbed a Scantron and a blue book, and left.

I hadn't been out of my building this early in a while. I went by the coffeeshop and got a large to go. I was jittery while I was inside; all I could think about was the fight yesterday. I managed to maneuver my way in and out without looking at that corner at all. I think that the barista would have judged me if he hadn't marked me as just another pre-caffeine student.

I sat outside the building with my class, waiting for the doors to unlock. I decided to sit on the ground, curling my knees up against my chest, pressing the hot cup between my knees and my chest, my hands cupped around it. My hair caught once or twice in the brick; the fabric of my hoodie got caught too. I picked at the paper on my coffee cup sleeve and tried not to think about Annabeth for an hour. I tried not to think about her lying. I tried not to think about her in bed with Luke, over him, under him, the way her face would move. I tried not to think about the way her hair dipped and curled and shone in the sunlight, or the way the corners of her eyes crinkled when she laughed, or the half-dimples that would sometimes show when she was biting back a smile.

I tried not to think about a lot of things, and on the whole, I wasn't very successful.

The exam stretched on and on, for a thousand and one years.

Which is an exaggeration.

Kind of.

I mean, technically it was only ninety minutes. But every problem that was on the multiple choice was a problem just like one that Annabeth and I had worked on. I couldn't help but remember her little mnemonic devices, rhymes and songs and formulas that could be figured out by humming "" under my breath. The way her fingers drummed out rhythms against the table. The way her face would light up when I finally understood a problem.

I was the last person to turn in my exam, two minutes before time was officially called. Professor Stein peered up at me from his seat.

"And how confident are we about this, hm, Mr. Jackson?" he asked, shuffling his papers.

I opened my mouth to talk, and then realized I honestly couldn't think of anything to say. I paused and shook my head, shrugging. He frowned.

"An uninspiring answer," he harrumphed. I shifted my bag on my shoulder and left without a word.

* * *

The plane ride home was awful. I plugged in my headphones and slept. I dreamed about gold and gray, surrounded by water.

I woke up occasionally, when the plane hit some turbulence. I watched the mountains roll by, and then the fields, and then the clouds, and thought about how stupid it was to fly all the way across the country for three days before flying all the way back for graduation.

But I had always done things for my family that didn't make the most sense, or that I found stupid. I did them because it was my family, and that was what you did for family: everything. And regardless of how stupid I thought they were sometimes, they had never once lied to me. They had never once betrayed my trust.

* * *

When I stepped out of the airport, I scanned the crowds for Priya, the driver for my dad's company who usually picked me up for this kind of thing. Instead, I was met with Thalia, holding a cardboard sign with my name on it, and Nico, holding a sign that said "assbutt." I smiled reflexively, a chuckle rising in my chest against my will.

"I like you more," I told Thalia, pulling her into a hug. She huffed a laugh against my shoulder and squeezed me back harder than strictly necessary. I got the message: we were okay.

"Yeah, but I get points for accuracy," Nico huffed from behind us.

"Shut up," Thalia and I said in unison.

She drove us out to the country house where we had pretty much grown up, chattering about everything and nothing. She opened the sunroof and rolled down all the windows, letting the air whip at our skin and hair, shouting to be heard over the gusting winds. I watched the house come into view on the distant horizon, jutting out from the carefully trimmed lawns and the orchards. The gravel driveway crunched beneath the tires as we rounded the first bend. Thalia rolled the windows up and turned the music down.

"Are you guys ready to really face the music?" she asked, a grim smile set on her face.

From the backseat, Nico snorted. "Hell no. And if either of you say you are, I'm calling you on your bullshit right now."

"Fair enough," I said. "When's the business portion?"

Every family event had a business part—with family like ours, there was really no way to avoid it. After too many vacations and Christmases split between work and fun, the family had collectively decided to make a "business day" in every holiday to get the work out of the way in one fell swoop. Our respective fathers would invite business partners over, usually for a gala or dinner that all of us were forced to be present for. The attire was swanky, the food was questionable and French, and most of the talk usually went right over my head. I hated the business days.

"Tonight," Nico grumbled. "Formal wear. Dinner downtown in some swanky hotel. We are, as always, expected to wine and dine. In penguin attire."

"Men are hot in suits, okay," Thalia defended.

"Yeah, really hot penguins," Nico scoffed.

Their bickering started up again just as we rounded the final curve in front of the house. It looked deserted, even though I could see the cars farther up the drive—Uncle Zeus' deep blue Rolls, my mom's green station wagon, Dad's forest green convertible, and other more indistinct cars. Thalia pulled up behind her mother's powder blue Volvo and turned the car off.

None of us made a move to get out, content to sit in the quiet of the car and prepare ourselves for whatever the hell was going on with our family today. Well. I assumed that was what they were doing. I was certainly trying, but I couldn't quite get a handle on what I was feeling. Ever since Annabeth, everything was either emotional turmoil or a complete blank, as far as feeling thing went.

Nico sighed. "Okay then." I didn't look when he exited, shuffling along the seat and slamming the door closed behind him. He moved up the steps like a shadow, all long legs and dark clothes. Thalia and I watched him go.

"Is it okay?" she asked.

I sighed. "Yeah. I mean. It wasn't exactly the best way for me to find out, but it was something that I needed to know."

"Have you talked to her?"

I shot her an incredulous look. "Have I—Thalia, have you lost your _mind_?"

"Shut up, I'm serious. She was really torn up."

"You—_you_ of all people—shouldn't be defending her!" I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

She went quiet for a while, her hands resting on the steering wheel, shoulders slumped. She didn't look at me when she talked. "I know that I should be angry at her, for lying to me. For doing…that with Luke while being my friend. But she honestly didn't know that we were together, and I have talked to her since, and. Honestly, she's one of my best friends. And I still have problems with the whole _situation_, and I'm still angry as hell at Luke, but…after I talked to her, what she did makes a little more sense."

"But how can I talk to her?" I asked, struggling to keep the defeat out of my voice. "How can I—I looked her in the eye and she told me a straight-faced lie. She told me she hadn't slept with Luke, she told me it was a while ago. And then her reason for lying to me was because I was _nice enough_ for her to get away with it." Thalia made a noise that sounded like she was trying to talk, but I spoke over her. "I'm so freaking tired of being the nice guy, Thalia. I'm always the nice guy, the guy who gets passed over—"

"Percy, you _know_ friendzoning is a myth—"

"I'm not _saying_ I'm being friendzoned, I know that's a stupid concept, I'm _saying_ that even for girls who view me romantically, I'm ultimately not the typical guy that they want. And I just go with it because I'm a nice guy. And with Annabeth, I don't—I don't want to just go with it anymore, because she took advantage of my, my trust. And it hurt like a _bitch_, and I just don't think. I don't think…I don't think I can really trust her right now, if I were to talk to her. And honestly? I don't know if I would even want to."

The silence in the car pressed in on us after I finished talking. I heard her shifting next to me, and then her arms were around my neck , pulling me in for a hug. I pressed my eyes closed tightly and hugged her back. We sat there for another few minutes before she pulled away.

"Enough of this chick-flick stuff," she said. "Come on, Manly McMan, Nico's probably eaten all the food by now."

* * *

I tugged at my collar as I watched the floor indicator on the hotel's elevator slide down. My mother nudged me. "Stop fidgeting with it," she chided, smiling.

"Your mother's right," Dad said, moving up next to my mother and wrapping an arm around her waist. "Hello, love."

"Tell your son that he looks dashing in a suit and he should stop complaining."

"Tell your wife that dashing doesn't apply to twenty year olds and that even if it did, I'm not it."

"I'm staying out of this," Dad chuckled, checking his phone for messages. The elevator dinged and we stepped on, Dad pressing the button for the top floor. I'd been to the restaurant before, for my high school graduation. The walls were all windows, a gorgeous view of Los Angeles at night. My dad and uncles had rented out the venue for the evening.

The event was already going when we arrived. A small band was playing some kind of smooth jazz medley in the corner, and the long table against the far window gleamed with china and silverware, little placards indicating where we should sit. Around the room, catering tables and bars were serving the people milling around. My dad grabbed me before I could slip away with my mom. "Come on. You're going to have to do this on your own soon enough, you may as well learn now."

"I've been going to these since I was five, Dad." A lesser man would have said I was whining. I knew, however, that I was making a reasonable and adult objection.

He shot me a half-amused look, steering me towards a group of people. We made the rounds, socializing, laughing in the right places, looking serious and nodding when appropriate. I made small chat, usually of the, "Well yes, I have grown, yes, I am graduating soon" variety. I fended off several questions about my grades, answered several about my projected graduation date (five days), as well as fielding the bombshell "What are you doing with your degree?"

For all that my dad nagged me about needing experience, I really did know what I was doing—and he knew it, too. He sent me several approving looks throughout the evening, patting me on the back in congratulations when the head server announced that dinner was ready.

My mother met us at the table, near the center. Uncle Zeus, Thalia, and her mother were already seated at the center, facing the room. Uncle Hades, Aunt Maria, Bianca, and Nico were seated to their left, with my family to the right. The seats opposite all of us began to fill up gradually, as the guests made their way to their chairs. I fiddled with my silverware, trading jokes with my mother under our breaths, my father chuckling and chiding us when we got a little bit too loud.

"Well, I must confess surprise at this particular seating arrangement." The voice was cool and clipped, carefully modulated. I looked up to find a tall woman, beautifully built and dressed in a modest white cocktail dress with pearls, pearl earrings shining against deep gold curls and set off by steely, hard gray eyes. Athena cocked a perfectly plucked eyebrow at my father, standing aside to let the waiter pull her chair out for her. She sat gracefully, and then gestured impatiently with her hand. "Sit down, dear, don't drag your feet."

I fought to keep my eyes down, but they had a mind of their own, and I found myself looking up and over, right into the familiar gray eyes of Annabeth Chase.

"Poseidon, Sally, I would like to introduce my daughter, Annabeth. Annabeth, this is Poseidon and Sally and…I presume their son?"

"Yes, it is. Percy, you've heard of Athena, and now you know who Annabeth is. Annabeth, Athena, my son Percy." Dad's voice is carefully controlled, the businessman façade very firmly in place. "Are they about the same age? They look it."

"Annabeth is set to graduate from college in a little under a week," Athena replied, seemingly content to talk cordially about us like we weren't there.

"So is Percy!" Mom exclaimed, smiling. I fought the urge to say something and bit the inside of my cheek.

"Oh, and where will he be graduating?"

"NYU," Mom said, and Athena frowned.

"I guess it's a small world," she said. "So is Annabeth."

I glanced to the side and saw Thalia biting her lip, although I couldn't tell whether she was laughing at me or struck with worry. Further down, Nico was full-on frowning at us, and he looked pretty mystified. I hoped that Thalia had told him what happened. The table was nearly full now, and the waiters were beginning to bring out the soup, bread, and appetizer course.

"A very small world," Uncle Zeus interjected. "I apologize for butting in, but as my conversation partners don't appear to have arrived yet," he said, gesturing at the still empty seats in front of him, "I figured why not. Anyway, Thalia and Nico both are graduating from NYU this year as well."

"Annabeth, you don't get out as much as you let on…or you all run in _very_ different social circles," Athena laughed.

"What? No, we all know each other!" Nico called down. Thalia bit her lip and I barely muffled a groan. "Thalia and Annabeth are, like, seriously good friends, and Annabeth and Percy—well—"

"_Well_, I guess Annabeth didn't have the chance to tell you how we met," Thalia interrupted with a bright smile. I watched Nico flinch as Bianca pinched him and shook her head emphatically.

"Percy," my mother said, "you know this lovely young woman and you didn't even bother to tell her hello?"

I opened my mouth and hoped something like words would come out.

"Lovely might be a stretch," I said.

_Not what I meant_, my brain shouted. _Not what I meant __at all_.

"I—I mean—what I mean is—"

"I think your meaning is perfectly clear," Athena said, and if ever a voice could create ice from air, it was this one. I couldn't tear my eyes away from Annabeth's face, suddenly open to me again, stricken, hurt. It closed again just as quickly, her eyes shuttered, lips pursed. Two spots of color appeared high on her cheeks.

"No, I really—I'm bad with words, I did not in any way mean to imply that your daughter was not a beautiful, um, woman," I fumbled.

"Looks like we're saving someone from an awkward situation," a new voice joked. I looked over just in time to see Thalia choke on her drink. A tall, handsome older guy beamed at us, and moved over to grab the arm of someone behind him. "Zeus, Hades, Poseidon, I think you've all met my son, Luke." I saw Bianca grab at Nico's arm again, but he shook her off, gaze travelling between Thalia's face, drained of color, and Luke's, flushed with it. Then his gaze expanded, taking in Annabeth's dull flush and bitten lip, and finally meeting mine. I watched understanding begin to form.

"Wait. Wait, I'm sorry," Nico said slowly, rising to his feet. Bianca pulled desperately at his arm, but he shook his head emphatically and she let him go. He looked at me. "Him and _her_?" he asked me. I licked my lips and tried to say something, and then thought better of it. He understood anyway. "And what about you?" he asked Thalia.

She looked at him, and then at Luke, and then at the tablecloth. I'd never seen Thalia look so—so _hurt_ in my life. It was like she literally had nothing left to say. And Nico saw her looking at that, and he looked at me, and then he really seemed to get it. "While she was—Percy?" he asked, and I looked at Luke.

"Percy," Athena said suddenly, "you seem to have a grasp on what's going on, although I personally doubt you have the capacity to handle much more communication, so—"

"I'm sorry, are you calling my son stupid?" Dad said, sharp.

"Well, I'm certainly saying that intelligent 'might be a stretch'," she said, a biting smile.

"Mom—" Annabeth started.

"Dad," I tried.

"You son of a bitch," said Nico, and he threw a glass of wine in Luke's face.

Luke gasped, and Mom cried out. Thalia stood up, and Annabeth's jaw dropped. Slowly, wine dripping from his face, Luke leaned forward and reached for a napkin.

"You don't deserve napkins, you two-timing bastard! You hurt my cousins!" Nico cried, snatching the napkin out of his reach and throwing a dinner roll at his head.

"Nico," Hades thundered.

A mashed-up spring roll bounced off the side of Nico's cheek. He turned, gaping, at Thalia.

"Thalia!" Zeus scolded. Beside him, Aunt June looks at the situation and downs the entirety of her champagne glass.

"You're _defending_ him?" Nico gasped.

"No," Thalia said, licking her lips and smiling. "I just wanted to throw something at you." She picked up another spring roll, mashed it up, and dropped it into her wine glass. "I'm sure as hell not defending him." She threw the contents of the glass at Luke's face.

"Zeus, what the _hell_ is going on?" Hermes demanded.

"Food!" cheered a small child next to Demeter, throwing a plateful into the air and liberally dousing everyone around her.

"Poseidon, as your son appears to actually know something about these events—"

"Oh? Your _daughter_ appears pretty involved!"

"Yes, well, my _daughter_ inherited her ability to distance herself from a situation from _me_—"

"And you're _so good_ at that, really, because as far as I can remember your _in_ability to distance yourself nearly cost us more than one client in the last three years!"

"Those were not my fault! If anything, you and your ludicrous and unrealistic business model was responsible for the completely _righteous_ indignation from Odinson and Sons—"

I caught my mother's eye, and she flicked her gaze from me to Annabeth and back. I got the message, standing up and skirting behind my father and my mom, edging around the table. I stepped over to her, grabbed her wrist.

"Let's go," I muttered, carefully eyeing her mother.

"Yeah," she replied, stepping back to stand next to me. We turned to head for the doors, but a dripping Luke intercepted us.

"You can't keep running away from your problems," he said to Annabeth, his face red with anger (and probably with wine).

"I'm not running away. I don't run away," she said, wrenching her wrist out of my hand, standing up straighter to face Luke.

"See, it's funny, because I'm normally saying that to your back."

I saw her eyes flutter and press closed for a moment, holding back whatever her reaction was to that comment. I wasn't so good at holding back things. I stepped in front of her and grabbed Luke's tie in my fist, yanking him close to my face.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" I demanded, and he snarled.

"Oh, _hell_ no," I heard, and then there were two sets of hands pulling me back. Annabeth tugged on my right arm, while Thalia was pulling on my left. "This is _my_ fight. And _Annabeth's_ fight. You get third swing," she said.

Then she slapped Luke across the face twice, backhanding him after the first strike. "You threw chardonnay at me, really?"

I took it as my cue to get out, and I motioned to Annabeth to follow me. We slipped across the room, dodging fighting couples, food-smeared groups, and the small child (who I presumed was Demeter's kid) running around naked and covered in soup. When I finally shut the door behind us, it was with a sigh of relief.

I leaned against it for a long minute, taking a deep breath and preparing myself for the conversation. But when I finally got up the guts to turn around, all that deep breathing was for nothing. My breath abandoned me again when I really looked at Annabeth.

Even with the splashes of food and dark red wine against the white fabric, she still looked just as beautiful as that first night I'd met her. Her gossamer dress shone against her skin, the spattering of freckles just by her left collarbone highlighted by the lobby lights. Her hair had jostled a little bit loose, curls spilling around her face, curling just next to her eyes.

Her eyes filled with tears.

Crap.

"Okay," I said, once I found my voice. "It has…been pointed out to me that I didn't exactly give you a chance to explain anything last time we, um. Talked. So. If you want to, uh, explain, I…I'm here to listen."

She took a deep breath, and even from six feet away I could hear it shaking. "All right. Well. I…" she trailed off and shook her head, curls flying, frowning. "I can't…" She made a frustrated noise and brushed her hair away from her face, curling it behind her ears. Her eyes glittered with tears she wouldn't let herself shed. She pressed her lips together and collected herself before she tried again. "You said, that day, that you were tired of always being the good guy. And. Well, Percy, I don't know many good guys. None, outside of you, actually, which, okay, yes, I don't exactly keep the best company with guys. I don't know how to talk to them, or how to be myself around them, and so I just don't even bother getting to know the right kind of guys, or getting to be friends with guys.

"I don't think I've actually had a conversation with a guy I thought could be a decent friend since I was…in seventh grade? And that's not to say that I viewed you as a friend, because—" she broke off, laughing without humor. "I mean. I. You _were_ my friend, and you _were_ so nice, and you were the first guy ever that I could see myself actually wanting to date. Normally I just, y'know, go to bars, meet a decent guy, and—ugh. See, this is what I'm talking about. I sabotage myself." She sighed. "Do you understand?"

"No," I said. "Not at all."

She gave a half-sob, half-laugh. "No, I guess not. Um, okay. I…I'm not used to having good luck when it comes to guys. I usually wind up with the jerks who don't really want me, they just want what I look like—I could be a cardboard cutout and they would be satisfied. And then I met you. And you, you actually looked at my _eyes_ when we talked, and I hadn't had that experience in a long, _long_ time. You were nice, and you stopped when I told you to, and you…you _respected_ me. You weren't just in it to get me into bed, you were in it to talk to me and joke with me and to spend time with me. And that _scared _me, Percy."

"I scared you because I was _nice_?" I asked, mystified.

"_Yes_," she breathed. "Yes, that's exactly what happened. Have you ever—have you ever gotten so used to bad things that a good thing comes along and you just look at it and think _This doesn't belong to me, this belongs to someone else_ or _I don't ever get anything this good_ or _What the hell is the catch_? Because that's exactly what happened to me. I just kept waiting and waiting for a catch, and the longer I waited and it didn't come, the more freaked out I got. And…yes, okay, I don't exactly have the best judgment when I panicked, and I _was_ going to tell Thalia, and you, eventually, but."

"But you lied," I said. She closed her eyes, and I saw the tears at the corners of her eyes. She brought up her hand and wiped the wetness away before real tears could fall.

"I didn't want to lose the first good guy that had come my way in ever, Percy. I didn't want to lose you, and I couldn't think of any way I could tell you the truth and you wouldn't leave. I was scared of that too, Percy, and if you know me at all, you know just how much it's _killing _me to admit this, to admit that I was afraid. To admit that I lied. To admit that I…that I was weak, for this part of my life. That I…that I did the wrong thing. And that I'm sorry." She nearly choked on her words. "And if you really are the kind of guy I think you are, you know how much this is costing me. So please, Percy. Just…_please_."

My head was spinning. I had a thousand different voices in my head all shouting different things, with one that sounded suspiciously like Thalia's screaming, "Take her back! Take her back!"

"Annabeth," I said. "I—"

The doors flew open and my father stormed out, asparagus dangling from his suit lapel, his shirt stained red, his hair dripping. "We're leaving! _Now_," he said, grabbing me by the collar as he passed behind me.

"Wait, Dad, I just—"

"No," he said sharply, jabbing the elevator button as my mother rushed out of the dining room, her coat over an arm. She passed by Annabeth and gave her a small, comforting smile before the elevator dinged. We stepped in, and I shot a desperate look at Annabeth. She bit her lip, and I watched her eyes fill with tears again. She slowly lowered herself to the ground as the elevator doors slid shut, and I felt my heart clench, tight, painful.

* * *

I hardly slept that night, waking up almost every hour. Eventually, around six, it got to the point that I'd rather be awake anyway. I pulled some pajama pants over my boxers and reached over to my phone, scrolling through Facebook notifications and checking my email. I had five unread messages—something from Sports Illustrated about a survey, two emails from the campus police with warnings about underage drinking, a message from Volvo about their new car line, and—and an email from Professor Stein. It had no subject. I opened it, my mouth dry and heart going a mile a minute.

_Congratulations, Mr. Jackson, _it read. _A perfect score is commendable indeed. Enjoy your graduation_.

A perfect score.

I gaped at my phone screen, in a trance. I had gotten a _perfect score_ on that exam, an exam in a subject that I had absolutely no idea how to handle just a week ago. Before I met Annabeth.

And I was back full circle, back to the reason I hadn't been able to sleep, back to the reason I'd been closer to crying last night than any time in the last five years of my life. I didn't know what to do, or what to think. Truthfully, I had no idea what I would have said to Annabeth if my dad hadn't come barging out when he did. What she had said about herself—I knew that part of it was true, I knew that it had probably killed her to be so open and to sacrifice her pride like that.

And it was ridiculous that I knew that, that I knew her like I did—that I knew that she was prideful, that I knew that she didn't like to take off her mask, that she was protective of herself and those few people close to her, that doing what she did with Luke was so _wrong_, so _un-Annabeth_, that I knew how loyal she was. It was absurd that I knew all of these things about this random girl that I had met a week ago, that she had just walked in and turned everything in my life upside down. I growled in frustration and moved to stand up.

Athena pounced from under my bed—the kitten, not the terror that had thrown a plate of asparagus at my father last night—her claws sinking into the flannel of my pants. I quickly swooped her up before she could climb up and sink her claws into skin. She mewled indignantly and jumped from my hand onto the bed, prancing up to my pillow and curling into the indent left from my head. She yawned, stretched and then relaxed into the pillow again.

"I guess I won't be getting any more sleep," I said, tugging on her tail. I shrugged a shirt from the floor over my head, yawned, and left, heading down to the kitchen. I walked in on my mom making coffee and pancakes, a plate of bright blue eggs already on the counter next to blue-tinted bacon.

"What's all this?" I asked, smiling.

"You're up early! God, I haven't seen you awake before nine since high school," she laughed, flipping a pancake. "Want some coffee?"

"_Please_," I said, sliding into the chair by the island. She laughed again and began pouring me a cup, smiling. I had almost forgotten how happy my mom was, and how infectious. I could feel the weight on my chest getting lighter. I took a long sip of the coffee before I spoke again. "So really, what's with the blue feast? Nobody else is here, besides us and Dad. Everybody else stayed in L.A. for the night."

"It's a congratulations breakfast! I got your final transcript this morning, and you aced your Stats exam!" she cheered, setting a blue pancake and syrup in front of me. "Which, while unexpected, is still a cause for celebration. So: blue breakfast! I figured classics never go out of style."

I did my best to grin around the massive amount of pancakes in my mouth. I swallowed and chased it with another mouthful of coffee. "Thank you. And I…I didn't do it alone."

She frowned.

"Thalia got me a tutor," I said.

"Oh," she said, smile returning. "Must've been some tutor."

I sighed. I figured if anybody knew what I should do, it would be my mother. "It was Annabeth. Athena's daughter."

I saw the emotions run across her face. "Oh, Percy. So you _do_ know what that was all about, last night?"

I nodded. "You remember Luke, right? And his thing with Thalia?"

"Of course."

"Well, apparently one of the girls he cheated on her with was Annabeth. Annabeth is friends with Thalia, but at the time she had no idea, and when she found out, she ended it with him. But…it happened right after she met me. And. She lied to me about it, to my face. And when Thalia found out, everything burst out into the open."

"Oh, Percy…when did all this happen?"

"Uh. Two days ago?" I offered, smiling weakly.

"Percy!"

"Yeah. And I…I didn't really let her explain herself, which I thought was the right thing, you know? Like, she _lied_ to me, so what possible reason should I listen to? But then, last night, she…she really did swallow her pride, and she opened up to me, and she explained what she was thinking, and she apologized, and I think it was for everything."

Mom didn't say anything. After a while, I looked up at her. She had this soft, happy expression on her face. "You're really gone for this girl, aren't you." It wasn't a question, but I nodded anyway.

"I keep thinking that it's crazy. I've only known her a week, you know? It happened so fast. But I know her. Like, I _get_ her in a way that I've never really gotten anyone else before. And I don't want to see her hurt, or sad, or, or upset, and I know how big of a deal it was that she opened up to me, and I know what makes her laugh, and I know what she would name her dogs if she could get them, and I know that she puts her toilet paper roll over instead of under because she thinks that it's ridiculous any other way, and _I _think it's ridiculous that I _know_ that. And I don't know what to do, Mom. I don't know how I feel, or what to say, because on one hand I can't trust her, and on the other hand I want to, because I just have this feeling that this could be so much more."

"And it's massive and intimidating you have no idea which way is up anymore, I know." She took my hands between hers and squeezed. "Percy, this isn't something that I can just hand you an answer to. It's something that's very personal for you, something that is up to you. I can help—I can tell you that that's how I felt about your father, I can tell you that if she's willing to sacrifice her pride for you it means something, and I can tell you that she's changed you for the better. That she helped you. But ultimately it comes down to you and to her." She raised my hands and kissed them. "Now eat your breakfast. Your father will be up soon, and he will take the food from your plate. You know that as well as I do."

I smiled. "True," I said, and went back to eating, her words spinning in my head.

* * *

I hefted my bag higher on my shoulder as I left the airport, my other hand occupied with Athena's carrier. Behind me, Nico and Thalia were spitting insults at each other a mile a minute. I hailed a cab for us and we all piled into the backseat.

"Bitch, you love me," Thalia said to Nico. He scoffed.

"No, you really do, and after Friday night, anything you say to the contrary will be completely ignored." I grinned at his betrayed face. "What? You proved you _care_," I singsonged, Thalia cackled.

"I hate you both so much," Nico grumbled, shoving himself as far away from us as he could, pressing against the door. "I really, really do."

"You luh-luh-looove us," Thalia sang, a grin spread wide across her face. "Ha."

Nico groaned and smacked his head into the window. I watched out the window as the cabbie navigated the busy streets, swerving in and out of traffic, the buildings looming above us. The neighborhoods grew more and more familiar as we neared school. We had him pull in behind campus, dropping us off closer to the dorms. He joked with us: "I thought you guys were seniors, huh? Still livin' on campus with the fresh meat!"

"Hey, I didn't want to have to live in an obscenely expensive shoebox halfway across the city," Thalia grinned. "Dad only pays the bills if I keep 'em low, after all."

"Plus it makes getting to seven o'clock classes a hell of a lot easier," I grinned, forking over the fare.

"Makes sense," he allowed. "You kids take care."

He sped off, and we went our separate ways—Thalia to her apartment, and Nico and I to ours. We waved to the desk assistant, flashing our IDs. I fed Athena, plugged in my laptop, mindlessly flipped through my books, trying to catalogue how many boxes I'd need to pack. I didn't really want to think, but when Nico left to meet some guys from his class for a last celebration, I didn't have much else to do. I tried watching TV, reading, Facebooking, even made a foray onto Tumblr, which usually distracted me for hours. But nothing seemed to stick, and after four hours I found myself lying on my bed staring at the ceiling.

It wasn't just the Annabeth thing, although that was still a pretty heavy issue. It was everything piled together. It was the end of my schooling career, the end of classes and teachers and second chances. It was the end of people officially educating me. It was the end of my friends and I gathered around a table eating Chinese with cheap beer at two in the morning because it was the only time we were all free; it was the end of rooming with Nico, frantically swapping study guides and textbooks; it was the end of grades and exams and bar runs. Most of the friends that I'd made in college I wouldn't ever see again, except at a reunion.

I always had my family, and we were always close, but it was still a lot to come to terms with. Between finals and the…fiasco, I didn't exactly have time to really look at what was going on and come to terms with it. Now it was staring me right in the face. In two days, I graduated from college. In two days, I would start under my dad as the vice president of affairs. I would have a job, which was more than most graduates had, but it was hardly an easy one, and I knew that there was no margin for error. If I screwed up, I'd be out on the streets looking for a job, regardless of who my dad was.

This was the last door in the beginning of my life, and in two days, it would close forever. The next door was getting ready to open, and while I was sure it would have its own ups and downs and challenges, it would all be new. Nothing would be the same. I would be at sea without a compass, without ground. It was one of the scariest prospects in my life.

But a week ago, failing my Statistics exam was one of the scariest prospects in my life. And, with my family and my friends, with Annabeth, I had systematically reduced it in size, in scariness, until it was something I knew. Until I could handle it. I could never have done it on my own. Annabeth had made me see something in myself that I couldn't, and…and that was big.

There was something there that tugged on the corner of my mind, that wanted to be understood, that I couldn't grasp. Frustrated, I punched at my pillow until Athena hissed at the noise and movement of the mattress. I picked her up and dropped her on the floor and rolled over to face the wall, feeling the minutes pass by, listening to nothing until I finally fell asleep.

* * *

My mom waved at me from her seat beside my dad, beaming. I could just hear her "Oh, you're so _handsome_ in her gown" from here. I waved back, wiggling my fingers, and then went back to thumbing through the program of the thousands of my classmates, their awards, their honors. The glossy golden embossed logo glowed on the cover. I raised my head again, fingers tapping nervously, scanning the crowd. I saw Thalia's glossy black curls across the aisle and a few rows back, with the sleek shine of Nico's hair catching my eye five rows from the front. Grover's messy blonde curls were a few rows ahead of me…and Annabeth's hair was nowhere to be seen. I knew that she was here—had seen her walk across the stage to receive her degree what felt like five million years ago. I wondered where she was, if she had just left after her name had been called—not like her.

I huffed out a breath and shifted in my seat again, waiting for the last few rows to file in. The applause rippled across the audience, and the Dean ascended the stage and stepped up to the podium.

"Today, I stand before a group of adults. I remember your class as freshmen, wide-eyed and terrified at your orientation speech. Since then, you have grown strong. You have blossomed here at the school, assuming leadership roles in all of the student associations, starting new clubs and activities, leading rights marches, and helping those younger than you. The young woman I am about to introduce has done all of these things and more—taking charge of the Student Government Association, leading the tutoring program, journeying on several mission trips to aid the less fortunate, donating time and effort to her school, her friends, and to strangers. Ladies and gentlemen of the class of 2012, your valedictorian, Annabeth Chase."

Well, it would certainly explain her absence from the crowd. I managed to pull myself together just enough to clap for the last few seconds as she stepped up to the podium. She looked beautiful in the deep indigo robe, her hair falling in loose curls from beneath her cap, waving in time with her tassel. "Thank you." I imagined I could see her smile even from my seat in the middle of the crowd, imagined the way her eyes would crinkle. "Over the years, I learned thousands of lessons—some of them inside of the classroom, but so many of them outside of it, with all of you. I learned that the windows in the dorm are prone to leaking, and how to use white vinegar to get rid of mildew." Laughter from the crowd. My lips twitched in a smile.

"I learned that communal bathrooms aren't _always_ scary. I learned that when you stay up so late you stop seeing in three dimensions, it's probably time to go to bed." More laughter. "And I learned some more serious things, too. I learned that sometimes it doesn't matter how hard you try, you just might not be able to do it. I learned that no matter how independent you are, there will always come a time when you need to ask for help—and that asking for and receiving it does not make you weak. That when the time comes, and you're in a position to give help, it feels amazing." I could hear the warmth in her voice.

"I also learned things about myself that can apply to everyone. About why it's not always in your best interest to hold back. So often today, we're told that our emotions stunt our careers, our futures, our relationships. We're taught to go through life and make everyone like us just enough to move higher on that ladder that, we're assured, will end in happiness, somehow. But I've seen some of the top of that ladder, and if what I saw was happiness, it's not anything I want a part of." I frowned, squinting at her, shining gold and perfect so far away, and wondered if she could possibly be talking about what I thought she was.

"And I don't think that holding part of who you are back leads to happiness. I think it leads to lying, and to loneliness, and to alienation. I think it leads to pain and to regret. The most important thing to remember as we head out into the world is this: if nothing else, we have to be honest with ourselves. If we deceive ourselves, we have no chance of getting to that happiness. And we can get to the top of the ladder, and we can achieve anything else we set our minds to, but without that honesty, happiness is the one thing beyond our grasp."

And I knew that I wasn't imagining the weight of her gaze on me, and I couldn't suppress the way my heart was beating double-time, because I was suddenly and completely certain that this was about me. That it was about more than the way that she had changed me—it was about the way that I had changed her, too. I wasn't the only one that was scared at how intense it was. I wasn't the only one who was intimidated at the idea of trusting again. Annabeth was right there with me, and she was telling me so in front of five thousand of our classmates and our families.

I kind of zoned out for the rest of her speech, just listening to the rise and fall for her voice, staring at her until she was nothing more than a distant, brightly colored blur. I was snapped out of my trance by the sudden thunder of applause rippling through the student body. "Congratulations, Class of 2012! We made it!" she cheered, and then we were all rising to our feet as one giant purple-blue mass, thousands of caps and tassels suddenly flying through the air. I watched mine rise and fall, jumping up out of the crowd to snatch it from the air.

Everything melted together after that, into a press of warm bodies and knees bumping against chairs. I eventually found my way to my parents, and then to my aunts and uncles and Nico and Thalia. Grover waved at us from a distance away with his family, a near-manic grin lighting up his entire face. I laughed and shot him a thumbs-up. And then, behind him, further away, I saw a glint of gold, and my heart leapt into my throat.

"I'll be right back," I said, tearing myself away from Thalia.

"Where are you going?" Mom asked, hand on my shoulder.

"It comes down to me and her, right, Mom?" I said, smiling down at her. "So I should probably go talk to her."

She smiled at me, her eyes shining with tears. "Go get her, before you make my mascara run again."

I slipped through the crowds, keeping my eye on my goal. She saw me coming, which didn't really surprise me. I saw her make her excuses to her mom, smile at the guy I guessed was her dad, before she turned to face me.

We met in the middle of a clearing of people, plastic chairs scattered askew all around us, people murmuring and laughing and cheering. We didn't say anything for a few moments, and when we finally spoke, it just had to be at the same time. We laughed, a little awkward, and then we went quiet again.

"You were right," I said. "And you're not the only one who should be sorry. Who _is_ sorry."

She huffed out a small laugh. "Percy, you don't have to—"

"But I do, because I am." I sighed and met her eyes. "You lied to me, but I didn't let you explain. And, okay, it hurt me, and it hurt my trust. But I didn't…you didn't…I can't talk."

"There is a reason you didn't get a degree in English," she teased. She reached out and took my hand. "You, um. You changed how I see a lot of things, Percy. How I see the world. How I see pizza. How I see myself. And, I…I like to think that I'm not the only one? That, that changed?"

I laughed, tightening my grip on her hands and stepping closer to her. "Hell no, you're not the only one. I would never have…never have stood up for myself, never would have reconsidered you, if you weren't so…_you_. There's something about you that I don't understand, that I can't ignore. And. Annabeth. I know that we're adults now and that we don't really know each other, but, I mean, I loved having pizza in flip-flops with you, and talking about Calvin and Hobbes, or about food fights, or ranking the top nerdiest celebrities, and, and, oh, having you magically teach me Statistics in a week! And I think about the way your eyes look when you smile, or the way you take your coffee completely black with like twenty sugars, or—"

"You seaweed brain," she laughed, eyes bright, and she reached up and pulled my mouth down to meet hers.


End file.
